It’s Banned Books Week. What are you reading?
Before you reply, “Not a banned book,” like my husband did, are you sure? If you are reading The Hunger Games series, a classic Twain novel or even Harry Potter or Captain Underpants with your kids, you are reading books that are currently or have been banned. Oh, and of course, if you use the Dictionary. It’s been banned as well.
It never ceases to amaze me, the kind of knee-jerk reactions that book banners have regarding anything from sweet And Tango Makes Three (because two male penguins raise a chick—and it’s a true story!) to hilarious The Dirty Cowboy (even though you never see any of the cowboy’s parts in this silly story, parents cry that it could promote a love of pornography. Seriously?). Even my beloved Maurice Sendak had several of his books banned—including one of my favorites, Where the Wild Things Are, due to “violence.” His In the Night Kitchen has been challenged even more due to the nudity throughout the book. In fact, it seems like nudity makes a lot of children’s books qualify for the banned title, which just exemplifies how we Americans are afraid of our own bodies (unless they are used for selling us products, I guess).
As irritating as it is that books are still being banned in 2013, I think we also have to be grateful that we can at least read what we want in America without fear of persecution. In some nations, reading banned material could result in being charged with a crime; here, it just means having to buy the book instead of checking it out from your school library.
I reserved a pile of banned children’s books for Wood Sprite this week from the library to celebrate Banned Books Week. We’ll be talking about how and why books are banned and what she thinks about it. How will you be participating, if at all?
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
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