Bumps in the Night

I started my journey of reading all the most commonly banned books with Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard.

Bumps in the Night is classified as a "je" book in our library, which means it's an "easy reader". These books are intended for children just starting to read on their own- between kindergarten and second grade. They are little chapter books. Bumps in the Night is about a stork (whose name I've already forgotten) who wakes up in the middle of the night. There are some creepy noises going on in his house. He gets up and sees a ghost. He calls his pal, who is a pig, and the pig says "well I know a way we can talk to the ghost and find out what it wants". He goes on to explain to his storky friend that a medium is a person who talks to ghosts, and a medium can come and hold a seance with them. So the stork has his piggie pal and some other animal friends come over, and they are joined by a creepy alligator lady. I bet she's from Louisiana or something. They all hold hands (because they're scared, explains the pig) and summon the ghost of a dead horse who's living in the house. Gross. The horse's name was George, I think, and he just wanted to say hi. The animals all become friends with the horse ghost and they make taffy and stuff. And they all live happily ever after.

Several pages into the book, I could sort of understand why this book is frequently challenged by parents. It's one thing to have a cute little Halloween themed book for little kids (adorable ghosties and black kitty cats and the like), but I think it's kind of an inappropriate topic for an early childhood book. What six year old really needs to know what a seance is? What first grader is interested in communicating with the dead?
I really hate the idea of banning books, but I honestly am not quite sure why this book was written. It seems like an out-of-place topic for the intended audience. Maybe the author should have practiced better judgment, I don't know. If the seance wasn't in there (it honestly was kind of creepy, and I love paranormal shows), perhaps it would have been ok. In theory, I don't think there's anything wrong with kids' books about ghosts. We owned several when I was a kid, and then there's Casper, and the Halloween books I mentioned. It was the communication with the dead that was off-putting and a tad inappropriate.