It is absolutely stunning to me that books are still banned or challenged (an attempt to ban) from libraries across the country. Of the top ten most frequently banned or challenged books, six of them are specifically targeted towards younger readers. I suppose it makes a perverted kind of sense that organizations and groups would try to "protect" our children from "subversive" literature, but it still takes the wind out of me to think that in a country where reading and reading habits are so poor, and perhaps on the decline, there are people out there trying to take books away from those who want to read.
One of the most challenged books is anything in the Harry Potter series (and no, for those of you who will think it funny to leave a comment, it's not becuase the books aren't particularly original). Certainly the censorship hasn't hurt Potter's sales, but I'm pretty firm in my belief that any book a child wants to read is better than not reading anything.
In looking over the list of challenged books, and the reasons for challenging them, I thought it was actually laughable that the children's book series Captain Underpants is challenged for "modeling bad behavior." I've got twenty bucks that says the people who challenge that book are the same people who let their kids sit around and watch Rugrats during the day. (My 7 year old son breaks into hysterics, laughing at the antics in Captain Underpants.)
I don't have a problem with people who choose not to read something because they find it offensive for some reason. But I don't understand the reasoning behind trying to make sure no one else ever reads it. (Have I ever found a book so awful that I discourage people from reading it? Yes. Would I go to the extreme of trying to remove it from the shelves? No.) Reading is so damned important, it's GOT to be encouraged whenever and wherever. I will steer my own kids towards books that I think are suitable or un, thank you. Keep your censoring paws off my library!
If you're curious about what kinds of books are still banned, you can click on the title of this blog and you will be taken to the American Library Association page about banned books.
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Stix's musing on everything from fine art to literature, drama and videos, and quite possibly way too much about his children.
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7 comments:
I don't want to get into a whole thing here, but the people who are banning books are the people who aren't happy unless they can impose their own view of morality on everyone else. It's not just books, but other things as well. As we all know.
Mo--
I'm not sure what kinds of books you're thinking of, but I stick by my statement. Could there be a better choice in a particular book? Yes. But reading is better than not reading. Perhaps I over-estimate the abilities of children, but I figure that if a child is able to read at a particular level then they should be able to read any book at their level. Now I will qualify that by saying that being able to read the words doesn't qualify anyone as necessarily being able to read at that level. One must be able to read and understand what they read. My 9 year old daughter, for instance, has read the first couple of books in the Princess Diaries series (a series aimed at older teens). She likes it, but she doesn't understand much of the romance talk, so she's not really ready for that level. If she really wanted to read it, I'd let her, but she hasn't had a problem with my steering her away from it for awhile.
Let 'em read! I say.
Mo: I have the bad feeling that your being serious here. I clicked on the link you provided and just started laughing out loud at the first book on the list. As I scanned down through the list, my laughter not only continued but increased greatly. Can't trust those damn commies!
Thanks for a good laugh.
I think the list that Stix referred to is different from Mo's list. (You can get it by clicking the title of his post.)
It would strike me that most of the books on the conservative list--which I believe is a list of "harmful" books, not books to be banned but Andrew Sullivan also read it as list of bannable books--wouldn't really be an issue for kids, because the vocabulary is too hard. I read the Manifesto in college--in a class, along with the Federalist papers, Hobbes, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill--and found it kind of slow going, and I was six months from law school. My guess is that if a kid has the skills to read those books, they've absorbed enough of your values and enough other thinking that they can rebut them.
Nietsche appears to be aimed at a 50 year old reading level. I think I read pretty well for a 46-year-old and it just makes me want to go outside and play kickball.
What strikes me as a non-parent is how challenging it must be to keep young kids from pornographic and semi-pornographic materials. Even good shows like Friends and Will and Grace seem just riddled with just sex references that I find funny but that I would not want to explain to a kid.
I noticed I didn't mention violence, but I meant to include it in the stream of cable, internet, interactive and ambient nastiness that I would hate to have to deal with as a parent.
Mo wrote:
"Odd how people are eager to believe that the arts are capable of spreading good, but not at all capable of spreading evil."
I suppose because when it is spreading "evil" we call it propaganda.
I think of the arts as capable of "spreading good" because the arts tends to open an individual to creative expression and allows others to possibily see something in a new light (this goes to a bigger question...what is art?)
There are people who think that the arts are capable of spreading evil. Aren't they the people trying to ban the Harry Potter books? And what about the furor over the NEA financial support of a photographer and his questionable photographs a few years ago? Personally, I didn't see the evil in it that many seemed to. I just thought it was bad art.
When the medium of art is used soley as a didactic tool, it loses it's sense of art and becomes propaganda. Fahrenheit 9/11 comes most immediately to mind because of the vast amount of attention it received, or any of the books on your list.
Art itself isn't "good" or "evil" but the intentions behind its creation and its perceptions by others may well be.
K wrote:
"noticed I didn't mention violence, but I meant to include it in the stream of cable, internet, interactive and ambient nastiness that I would hate to have to deal with as a parent. "
Parenting is an on-going activity. I take an active role as a parent, trying to find that fine line between letting my children make their own way and being a guide on their journey.
Finding books and movies and computer web sites without sex and violence is difficult, but I work at it. Even something as seemingly inocuous as Scooby Doo can be troublesome. Many of the newer Scooby Doo cartoons no longer feature "bad" men in scary costumes but actual zombies or werewolves or witches or aliens from outer space. It is difficult to try and explain why it's okay for the kids to watch some Scooby shows and movies, and not others, but I do make that distinction.
Certainly I can't hide my children from sex, violence, foul language, etc, but I can do my best to have them exposed to it on the school playground where it belongs! (Just kidding.) They're going to discover it, certainly, and probably at school, but just because it's going to happen eventually doesn't mean it needs to happen right away. Let them be kids -- innocent and free -- for as long as possible.
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