I am now having a cup of coffee and browsing some new sites. I often find interesting sites via the Thursday Thirteen official meme site. One blog I have been reading got me interested. Did you know that America is holding a "Banned book week" from September 27 - October 4, 2008. There are 100 titles which are banned.
Do you like reading? I read all sorts, books, magazines, blogs, and newspapers. How would you feel if your freedom of choice to read what you want was taken from you? That would definitely be AWFUL!
Now, what if your children weren't allowed to read the classics like "The Catcher in the Rye" or "Macbeth" in their school? (Yes, I know some teenagers would be thanking their lucky stars!) What if your younger children were not allowed to have the Harry Potter books read to them? Don't they have the right to be able to be inquisitive, read and learn about all points of view, even if you might not particularly like it or agree with it? This is what growing up is all about!
I have looked at the list of banned books and I have only read a couple of them; The Catcher in the Rye, To kill a mockingbird, I know why the caged bird sings and the adventures of Huckleberry Fin. Many of the books on the list are by well respected writers, Mark Twain, JD Salinger, Lynne Reid Banks, Ken Kesey, Harper Lee and Maya Angelou. Take a look yourself here: Banned books.
The main objections to these books are violence, vulgar language, homosexuality and gender issues, racism, teenage sex and pregnancy, irreverence towards God and use of "politically incorrect" word such as "Nigger". I think that one is in “to kill a mockingbird.” It would seem that in some areas of America the feeling has been so strong that the opponents to the books have become embroiled in criminal activities and even violence in their attempts to remove them. Isn't that crazy!
What is wrong with the world today? Why can't we use our common sense? When your children are young then as a parent you can choose what you read them and guide them in their own reading activities. When they are at school, if you have chosen a good school, then you should trust the teacher’s choice. Above all though, we need to recognise that the world is not the perfect Utopia that we would like it to be and one of the ways that our young people learn about the world in which they live is through the medium of reading.
We cannot censor everything. After all, I am sure there are groups of people out there who would find something objectionable in every book going. We would have no books left! I used to read and enjoy all of Enid Blytons books when I was a child but the Noddy books were banned years ago because of the Gollywog. (Golliwogg) Political correctness gone mad! A Gollywog is an imaginary thing, a toy, it doesn't actually exist!
Even the ubiquitous “Janet and John” books which were the series used to teach children to read in the sixties, were banned because of gender stereotyping! Please let’s bring back common sense and allow everyone to read whatever they choose.
Also don't forget that when something is banned it immediately has a far greater worth and interest value. Your children will be screaming out to read those banned books. In fact what a great idea, maybe if we banned the entire works of Shakespeare, then our teenagers would want to read them! No? Maybe not!
I have always loved reading and read all kinds of things. I read to my children from the earliest possible age and they were all beginning to read when they started school. My girls in particular are all still avid readers and enjoy a wide variety of different genres.
I would be very interested to know what everyone else thinks about this issue. Do we have the right, as a society, to censor some books from certain categories of people?
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