(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

I was just thinking about why the ALA Challenged Books List invariably makes me so purely unhappy, just browsing through it and thinking about book banning.

And I guess I came to the conclusion that I oppose book banning not because I'm 100% anti-censorship (I hope I am, but you never know. I mean, I don't actively oppose the banning of violent video games, so I can't really say that I'm 100% anti censorship- although I would never ban a violent book.) but because of the books on the list, so many of them are ones I've read and re-read and adored; reading the list of titles is kinda like running into a really old friend when you didn't expect to but are glad to see, you know? Someone you've been mising for a while. And to me, the idea of someone growing up without reading Bridge to Terabithia is terrible. It makes me physically unhappy, you know? There are books on there I hated, but think are important- The Chocolate War and Flowers for ALgernon would probably top the list- and of course I'm angry for them; there are books I've never read, or have only heard of, or didn't like all that much, or liked but didn't love, but that I know why they're being banned and oppose that reason- probably I'd put Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's "Alice" series, or Go Ask Alice, The Colour Purple, Sex by Madonna, or even HEather Has Two Mommies!- but the ones that really really move me to oppose literary censorship are my favourites, the ones that I cannot imagine growing up without.

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry (at least they didn't hit Taking Care of Terrific, I suppose)
The Outsiders by SE Hinton..

I mean, I could go on for hours about what these books are about (and others) and why it's SO STUPID that they should be banned because they're NOT offensive (etc, etc, etc) but in the end... OMG I LOVE THESE BOOKS DON'T BAN THEM!

Comments

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Also, it's repressive. We have to be free to make our own decisions; parents need to have some control, but not ultimate control, over the opinions their kids are exposed to. If they think an opinion in a book is wrong, the only thing they can do is tell the kid why- taking it away isn't going to help. Zif you don't want your kids to swear, tell them why you don't like swearing- you can try not exposing them to swearwords at all, and you'll succeed for a while, but eventually they will hear a swearword and they will not have the tools to deal with it, to make a choice.

[miriamus.livejournal.com]

Personal responsibility - ever heard of it? (that was directed at the book-banners, not you!!) It's not up to the government to legislate on morality beyond that which is universally accepted as human rights...