Exhibit Is One For The Books -- Seattle Public Library Puts Assorted Works On Display That Others Wanted Banned

One Seattle reader wanted to ban Stephen King's "Christine," an adult-fiction book, for portraying an automobile as a "vehicle by which the devil drives people down like a weapon of murderous destruction."

Another thought the children's humor book "Slug" was offensive because of "violent and frightening imagery to a 5-year-old child." The book by David Greenberg depicts slugs as pets and also being ground up.

Nationally, even the children's classic "Little Red Riding Hood" has come in for censorship - two California school districts nixed it because of a picture showing a bottle of wine in the heroine's basket.

A large and varied assortment of banned books, including "Little Red Riding Hood," is on display through Saturday at the Seattle Public Library and its neighborhood branches. The displays are timed to coincide with the 1991 national "Banned Books Week - Celebrating the Freedom to Read."

Each book is sheathed with a black construction-paper "armband" detailing what some reader found objectionable.

Elke Boettcher, a librarian in the library's humanities department, said that nearly 200 books and other materials censored in the past decade are in the display in the Downtown Library's main floor near the checkout desk. All can be checked out. There also are copies of a list of banned books available and brochures on the subject of censorship. Each branch library has its own display.

Boettcher said the displays run the gamut from the "American Heritage Dictionary" to Doris Day's autobiography, "Doris Day: Her Own Story."

"Being concerned about censorship and free access to information is synonymous with being a librarian," Boettcher said. Attempts to censor include not only books but now also videos, films and other materials.

In the past year patrons have lodged complaints against 10 titles at the Seattle Public Library.

One patron criticized the "Preview Movie Morality Guide" for providing religious guidance on video movies, while another objected to "First Strike," a nonfiction video featuring jets used in the Desert Storm military action against Iraq. The viewer considered it pro-war without regard to the consequences to civilians and the environment.

Besides "Christine,""Slugs," the video guide and the Desert Storm video, other titles objected to in Seattle were:

-- "Mad" magazine because of satiric ads encouraging children to "sell nude pictures of yourself to an adult magazine as a means to make money."

-- "Get Out Your Handkerchiefs," a French feature movie on a sexual relationship between a minor and an adult, objected to for allegedly showing rape and disrespect for women.

-- "The Visions of Diana Ross," a collection of the singer's music videos because of two songs, "Swept Away" and "Muscles," which the objectors said portrayed women "in a lurid sex-hungry light."

-- "The Tales of King Arthur" by James Riordan, a fiction work from the juvenile collection objected to as too gruesome and insensitive to children.

-- "Prevention's New Encyclopedia of Common Diseases," a nonfiction item in the health collection, described by the patron as the "medical equivalent to astrology."

-- "Blitzcat" by Robert Westall, a children's book, which the reader said detailed human bodies being blown apart and some of the parts being eaten by a cat. However, librarians said they could not find that reference in the text.

Boettcher said a display of censored books was shown at this year's Bumbershoot celebration at the request of festival promoters to mark the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Association of College Stores.

The sponsors said they believe that most would-be book-banners act from what they consider to be the highest motives of protecting their families and communities from perceived injustices and evils and preserving the values and ideals they believe society should embrace. However, the result is to deny another's right to read, they said.