Banned Books Week
Posted on | October 7, 2009 | No Comments
Read!
Banned Books Week\ just passed (9/26 – 10/3). Living somewhere so rural, I was unable to get involved in any local BBW events. However, there were so many events across the country, I couldn’t keep from blogging about it, even just in general.
The ALA (American Library Association) website has a great section about banned and challenged books. They also offer the best explanation I’ve read of the difference between banned and challenged books.
Banning of books in the US, in particular, has always intrigued me. The US claims to be so free and in elementary school, book burning by the Nazis was compared with, “You can walk into a library and read whatever you want,” but we know that’s not entirely true. There are limits to all of our freedoms, including what we may or may not read. In reality, most of the book banning that goes on here is in the school system. Basically, adults are trying to protect their kids from something they perceive as threatening. Personally, I don’t think there is any better time to read controversial, emotionally stirring, sexual, or challenging to religion than in an educational setting. Where else can a room full of developing minds, all from different backgrounds and each with their own ideas, read the same book, discuss it, learn from it, and be led by a teacher through the intellectual minefield of deconstructing a book? I’m fairly certain that adults don’t form their own book groups because they want to all read a boring book and agree about everything in it.
This list, “Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century” is really interesting. It’s lengthy, but really worth reading. There were many time while reading the list that all I could do was shake my head. The Nazi’s choosing to burn The Jungle because of Sinclair’s socialist tendency makes some level of sense. The Great Gatsby being challenged because of “language and sexual references in the book,” definitely made me shake my head. That was in 1987 folks. Does anyone remember what was on MTV in 1987? I was only five, but I still remember the video for “Like a Virgin.” Even if you’re baptist, why not spend your energy trying to ban something like that rather than trying to ban an incredible F. Scott Fitzgerald novel?
That is basically the root of my interest in banned books. This is the list of books challenged and banned in 2009 (actually May 08 to May 09). I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower my senior year of high school, on my own. I can totally understand the book not being taught in a high school English class (although maybe upperclassmen), but that is also the perfect age to read that book. I would have connected with it even a bit younger than 17. That kind of thinking makes it hard for me to reconcile the decisions that schools, parents, administrators, etc. make about which books are allowed and which are not.
The last thing I have to point out is all the cool BBW stuff you can purchase from the ALA. I dig this banned books bracelet. You can order almost everything individually or in bulk orders for events.
I hope that this time next year, when I’m living near Columbus, GA (and not in the desert in CA) I can attend a Read Out! Either way, I can see a purchase of And Tango Makes Three in my future. Also, I must read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, because I haven’t read it yet. That will be my way celebrating BBW. What about you? Did you read a banned book recently? Did you attend any BBW events?
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