Banned Book Month

[tome_keeper]

September is Banned Book Month. What are some of your favorite banned books that are now classics and essential to a proper library? I look forward to promoting and selling books that were once banned at work, like "The Arabian Nights", "Candide", "Ulysses", "Brave New World", and numerous others. It's amazing that, even in this day and age, perfectly harmless books like Harry Potter have been challenged and attempted to be suppressed. What are your thoughts on banned books? What kind of books really should be banned? Should any be banned?

[Isadora]

This is my first post. I am not sure if half of my post is lost somewhere...but I am an English teacher (9th grade). My students will be reading Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 this week. They are amazed when I show them the list from ALA of the top 100 books that are challenged . I remember when I read Herman Hesse and James Joyce at age 15.
Due to parental control and the school board of course, there are a number of bools that I cannot discuss. But I hope that even posting the list will encourage my students to think outside the box and check out the books themselves.

[aeroport]

Welcome to both of you!
I didn't know Brave New World had been banned previously. Weird... I think the debate on banned books gets pretty silly sometimes. I can see the point - though I don't think it a particularly strong one in this case - of maybe wanting to direct students away from a book in which a man is masturbating while staring at a young girl (a "minor", I believe, by today's age standards) on the beach. Sort of understandable; there are other books out there. The Huck Finn debate, no matter how I look at it, strikes me as ridiculous; of course, race relations weren't particularly strained where I went to high school so I suppose it seemed less of an issue for us; but I don't think any sort of engaged reading of the text would offend anyone (except perhaps religious folks, whom one of my English teachers was telling me are among the principle objectors again!). I find the controversy regarding The Scarlet Letter's being blasphemous/indecent/pornographic/obscene a bit comical.

Regarding your final questions, tome keeper, I don't know if I would quite say "no books should be banned!"; I don't think I've really encountered anything so offensive that I feel it ought to be removed from my world, but there's probably one or two out there. Somewhere...
The trouble is, more often than not the people who object to these books - and, indeed, even sometimes those who have control over the verdict - raise issues over which only someone inept at the reading of literature could have made such a fuss. I think literature teachers are, as a general rule, probably the only people sufficiently aware of all the ideas presented in a novel to make such a decision. Perhaps it's not like this everywhere, but at my high school anyone who was not comfortable with the content of a work of literature was welcome to consult the teacher about an alternative project; of course, this precludes participation in class discussion, etc., but I suppose if that many people really objected to the standard works (and made it known in this way), they would probably be forced to change the curriculum. But that never seems to happen...hm...
Of course I can get rather defensive about people raising these objections because it carries all this tacit arrogance about somehow being on the moral high ground - hearing a novel described as "indecent" puts me on my guard immediately - but perhaps that's just me...

[BadassBookworm]

I work with a sweet woman who home schools her 6 children and according to her they love to read. However, I asked if they like Harry Potter (myself never been very interested in the series) and she said that she isn't comfortable with them reading Harry Potter books because it contains witchcraft and the like. I think that is kind of ridiculous to think that Harry Potter will skew a child's faith in God when they have faithful, loving parents.

[JBI]

I will stop my kids from reading Harry Potter until the age of 10 because I find it too religious.
~JBI

[Logos]

This is the American Library Association's website regarding banned books week :)

http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.htm

and here is their list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000:
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm

One of my favourite 'controversial', 'challenged', and downright 'banned' book is John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men :D

[AuntShecky]

The state of public education in the USA never ceases to amaze me. On the one hand, educators weep and wail and gnash their teeth because children can't or "won't" read; yet they ban a book at the first opportunity. How are young folks supposed to develop critical thinking skills if they are not allowed to think for themselves?
And by the way, the last time I looked, we have a little thing in my country called the US Constitution which guarantees Freedom of the Press.

[Niamh]

just looking at the challenged books list reminded me of something.
When i was in first year of secondary school one of the girls in my class had a judy blume book and it got taken off her. We got told we shouldnt be reading her books.

As for the sleeping beauty trilogy by anne rice....:sick:

[tome_keeper]

I can't imagine why anyone would want to suppress the Harry Potter books. For all the fantasy books and movies having to do with magic or "witchcraft" that are so popular and actually quite educational, why should people feel offended or worried about Harry Potter? Especially in this day and age, that is the one that baffles me the most. I think they're excellent and I think everyone should read them at least once.

Of Mice and Men is very good, too, but I can understand why it would have been challenged, at least in its time. Though it does seem ironic, as mentioned previously, that people seem so concerned about children not reading and then limiting what they can or should read. At least some progress has been made, when Of Mice and Men and The Scarlet Letter and others that were once banned are now required school reading.

I agree with you, Jamesian, about being on guard when a novel is described as indecent. Though I must admit, as a bookseller I constantly find books that I find rather offensive, if not just ridiculous. Zane's "Sex Chronicles" for instance...I can't fathom how they could have ever been published. And certain things I find in the "Romance" section...don't get me started! There's no comparing epic classics like "The Scarlet Letter" or "Ulysses" to shallow, mindless, pornographic drivel that probably just shouldn't have been published to begin with.

[Nossa]

Candide would be my choice as my fav. banned book. And I didn't even know tha The Arabian Nights was banned at some point. When was that?

[BadassBookworm]

The state of public education in the USA never ceases to amaze me. On the one hand, educators weep and wail and gnash their teeth because children can't or "won't" read; yet they ban a book at the first opportunity. How are young folks supposed to develop critical thinking skills if they are not allowed to think for themselves?
And by the way, the last time I looked, we have a little thing in my country called the US Constitution which guarantees Freedom of the Press.

I know why I "wouldn't" read in school. As a boy, I remember being forced to read books like Black Beauty, Little Big House, stories about fairies and unicorns, etc. It took me until I was a sophmore in high school to realize that reading wasn't the most boring activity in the world.

Another thing I hated was when we would finish a classic, i.e. The Odessey, Julius Caeser, we would instantly watch the movie. As if that speeds along the education proccess in any way. Romeo and Juliet with Leo DiCaprio is imprinted in my brain as the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Our tax dollars at work.

[Nossa]

I agree on Romeo and Juliet, that movie was hideous.
I personally had a problem with reading till I finished high school. We didn't study any novels, plays, poetry and likes of these, when I was at school, cuz I was in an arabic school, we had other english schools that taught classics in middle and high school. So basically the privilege of studying such things wasn't within my reach. I think that the educational systems almost everywhere are a complete failure.

[Demian]

I just started reading Lolita and have enjoyed it immensely so far. I've read other racy novels such as the Nexus trilogy by Miller and Anais Nin's Delta of Venus. But I must say that if some of the passages in this novel were to find their way onto my personal blog I would have NBC news knocking at my door with an officer in tow.

[PeterL]

Back to banning books. What book(s) should we ban?

[stlukesguild]

The state of public education in the USA never ceases to amaze me. On the one hand, educators weep and wail and gnash their teeth because children can't or "won't" read; yet they ban a book at the first opportunity. How are young folks supposed to develop critical thinking skills if they are not allowed to think for themselves? And by the way, the last time I looked, we have a little thing in my country called the US Constitution which guarantees Freedom of the Press.

First of all educators, for the most part, do not make the decisions to "ban" works of literature. These decisions are made mostly by administrators who cave in to pressure from parents and politicians looking for something to latch onto to create the illusion of their fighting for truth and good old American values... thinking obviously not being one of those values. It should be noted, much as I disagree with the removal of certain classics from the school curriculum, that "banning" is a rather exaggerated term. We are not talking Nazi Germany where books by Kafka, Hesse, Brecht, Heinrich Heine (Jewish), Freud, etc... could not be published, sold or brought across the borders and faced public burnings. These books have simply been removed from the public school curriculum. I agree that it is a grievous loss in some instances (Huckleberry Finn, Fahrenheit 451, Steinbeck, Harper lee, etc...) In other instances it is merely sadly comic: banning Harry Potter?! because it portrays magic which goes against some parent's religious beliefs?! Why not ban Homer and Virgil... Pagans you know... And certainly the Catholics would not want their children reading the works of a good Protestant like Milton (and they ought to ban Bach's music as well:brickwall). On the other hand I don't believe that children are necessarily ready for every book. I don't think I'd want them reading Portnoy's Complaint, Myra Breckenridge, Lolita or Blood Meridian in school (and certainly the US Constitution says nothing about parents not having the rights to want to establish certain limits on what their children are taught. Personally, I don't think most adults should read Mein Kampf or the Marquis de Sade. They are surely both repetitive, artless drivel (at best) and certainly come close to the definition of pornography as having no value beyond debasing humanity. Still... I'm uncertain if I would ban them. This topic, by the way, opens up the question of the artist/author's responsibilities (if any) to society. Critic Roger Shattuck, in Forbidden Knowledge makes some interesting arguments against certain debasing forms of art. Perhaps the most interesting being his point about the impact of such art. There are many (especially in the publishing and media) that argue that art has no true impact upon behavior... and yet the billions spent each year on advertising would seem to contradict this very notion. Just some thoughts.

[Nightshade]

Enid Blyton.... was banned because Noddy and BigEars were gay dont you know. And then later it was because of the Goliwogs...being a racist dolls...although as I remember it the golliwog was usually the amazing one and it was the blond hair blue eyed china doll that was usually not all there.

But what I find interesting is self censorship like E M forester with Maurice He didnt have it published untill 70 years after his death.

[Pensive]

Enid Blyton.... was banned because Noddy and BigEars were gay dont you know. And then later it was because of the Goliwogs...being a racist dolls...although as I remember it the golliwog was usually the amazing one and it was the blond hair blue eyed china doll that was usually not all there.

But what I find interesting is self censorship like E M forester with Maurice He didnt have it published untill 70 years after his death.

I remember having read somewhere she was critisized for having developed the characters of children (from Famous Five, Secret Seven, etc) too free and doing things without much adult supervision. But I don't think this criticism qualified as something to get her banned but who really knows!

[BlueSkyGB]

The ALA site has links to the challenged books with the reasons why they are challenged.......
some of the reasons elude me....:D :) :lol:

[aeroport]

On the other hand I don't believe that children are necessarily ready for every book. I don't think I'd want them reading [I]Portnoy's Complaint...,
Oh man, wouldn't that be interesting... :blush:

[Niamh]

i completely forgot that noddy was banned. loved it growing jup.

[subterranean]

I will stop my kids from reading Harry Potter until the age of 10 because I find it too religious.
~JBI

I think this post is hillarious. :)



I completely forgot that noddy was banned. loved it growing jup.

Noddy the doll with bell? Really? Why?