Banned Books Week

What do "Looking for Alaska", "Huckleberry Finn", "Goodnight Moon", "The Scarlet Letter", "Where the Wild Things Are?", "The Dairy of Anne Frank", and "To Kill a Mockingbird" all have in common? They were (or are) banned books. In honor of Banned Books Week, I would like to give a couple different perspectives about banning books. I welcome your comments and discussion!

A banned book is a book that has been removed from public shelves, whether from a library, a bookstore, or a school. The 10 most challenged titles of 2012 were:

1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
   Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: Offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group
3. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited for age group
4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James.
   Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit
5. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson.
   Reasons: Homosexuality, unsuited for age group
6. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini.
   Reasons: Homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green.
   Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group
8. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
   Reasons: Unsuited for age group, violence
9. The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls
   Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit
10. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
    Reasons: Sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence

PRO-BOOK BANNING:

Most banned books are in the Young Adult genre because the main reason for banning books is to protect children and youth from content that not appropriate to some parents. In regard to schools, the role of schools to educate children, and the curriculum schools teach should be determined by school principals, school boards, and other adults, not the wishes of the students. Appealing to the sensuality of the adolescents should not be the goal of the teacher. Just because a book sparks interest, doesn't mean it qualifies as suitable for education. Just because profane language is "authentic" teenage language, does not make it acceptable. By those, standards, teachers should be allowed to litter their lectures with profanity. Cultural slurs aside, teaching children promiscuity through the school system is uncalled for.


ANTI-BOOK BANNING:

Banning books in our own home, or controlling what your child reads or does not is fine, controlling what every other child in your county's library or school reads is not. Enforcing your standard of morality upon others is not an acceptable, or Christian, way to live. As a parent, you have a right to have input in your child's education, but the appropriate response to a book that cycles through your child's curriculum that doesn't meet your standards should be to ask a teacher for a different book for your child to read, switch schools, or simply walk by the book in the library or bookstore. Again, book banning, if done at all, should be done in the privacy of your home.

When we ban certain  books, the question becomes "Where do we stop?". In Ray Bradbury's "Farenhiet 459"(ironically a banned book) all books were banned because knowledge was considered painful.

The purpose of the post was simply to provoke you to think about banned books, because maybe you haven't ever given it a thought.Feel free to share your thoughts.