Attack Of The Black Rectangles

Attack of the Black Rectangles is part of a long history of literature that examines the harm that censorship causes. In 1644, the English poet John Milton, best known for writing the epic poem Paradise Lost, published the essay Areopagitica. The essay criticized the parliamentary ordinance requiring authors to obtain a license before they could publish their work, but it was also meant to be a treatise on the right to freedom of speech in general. Milton says that if people do not have the free will to read whatever material they want, and then use their own judgment to decide whether it is “good” or “bad,” then there is no value in a person being “good” because someone else made their choices for them. This argument can be seen in Mac’s own concerns regarding the censorship he protests.

Literature cautioning against censorship continued more than 300 years after Milton, and one of the many works addressing the freedom to read includes Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The novel frames a world where firemen come into houses to burn books, not to extinguish fires. Without access to the intellectual stimulation that books provide, the characters are numbed by TV screens and drugs, making them easier to control. The novel shows that books are so powerful that they must be eliminated when someone is trying to control a group of people.

Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran illustrates the power of literature in times of conflict, some 50 years after Bradbury’s well-known work of fiction. Nafisi’s memoir details the events that occurred after she was fired from her job at the University of Tehran for refusing to wear a veil over her head and face. She began a secret book club for women in which they read and discussed controversial books, which have been banned at various times and places. Most of the books they read included themes of oppression, reflecting their own lives during the Iranian revolution.

As school libraries continue to see an increase in censorship concerns, literature addressing the freedom to read is becoming more widely published for elementary and middle grade readers. Ban This Book by Alan Gratz is for elementary and middle school readers and follows a nine-year-old girl who wants to check out her favorite book from her school library. When she learns that the book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, has been taken off the shelves due to a parent complaint, she begins her own library out of her school locker. Like Mac, she learns why book banning and censorship happens and about the harm it can cause as she fights for her freedom to read.

Attack of the Black Rectangles is a variation on the theme of censorship and illustrates how censorship in the form of blacking out words in a text is condescending to young readers. Mac’s story and his classmates’ efforts to change the practice of censorship within their school demonstrates how adults can guide children through learning about difficult topics rather than avoiding them.