It is banned book week, which means that everyone is talking about banned books, which means that I am going to blog about banned books. Mainly, when people talk about wanted to ban books, it is that they don't want kids to read certain books. Lots of challenges happen in middle and high school libraries and in teen sections of public libraries. I have been having an issues with writing intelligently about age appropriateness of books because I am having a hard time remembering what I read in middle school and high school. It sounds weird, but I can't remember how old I was when I read Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging. I think high school. I have no idea when I started reading The Cat Who Books (not that they have anything objectionable in them). So, I am going to do my best to remember what I read and then just go with what I think I would be comfortable reading now if I were in middle school/high school.
I had a tendency to read challenged books without even realizing that they were challenged. I read a whole ton of Caroline B. Cooney books, which got challenged a lot in the late 90s/early 2000s; I read Philip Pullman before there was any controversy about them; I read Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging books before most people had even heard of them; two of my favorite books as a kid were The Giver and Bridge to Terabithia. Apparently I turned out ok, even after reading such controversial books. As I got older, I continued reading "inappropriate" books, like Stephen King (what 13 year old doesn't want to read about a kid whose father goes crazy and tries to kill him with a roquet mallet?), Harry Potter, and many others throughout the years. I like controversy!
Books can be challenged for many reasons: bad language, violence, sex, anything gay, religion, magic stuff, politics, or the ever popular inappropriate to age group. The books that tend to make the least sense to ban are the religion/magic ones. Like Harry Potter. It gets challenged because it has witchcraft in it. But it is a fantasy book. And they are wizards casting spells; they aren't out sacrificing virgins and drinking chicken blood. I mean, really. Kids books have all sorts of fantasy things, like boys who can fly, fairies, magical pots of spaghetti, dragons, unicorns, etc. Fantasy is outside of our normal world, so our normal politics and religion don't really have any baring on the goings on. Bad Language or profanity gets used as a challenge a lot. A lot. And in books for middle school and high school kids. I can understand not wanting to have books with lots of swear words in it in an elementary school library. But by middle school? Have people met middle schoolers? We swore in middle school. Most people not a whole lot, but we knew the words and we would say them when adults weren't around. In high school...people swore a lot. It is just what you do at that age. Reading a book with a "naughty word" in it isn't going to scar kids. It is kind of the same argument for sex. By middle school, you know about sex. And yeah, at that stage, most kids are still at the "giggle awkwardly at the thought of it" stage, but it isn't like reading a book that discussing sex is going to be something new. And having "homosexuality" as a challenge. That is just stupid. Books challenged or banned because a character is gay. Really? Do we live in the 50s? So stupid.
People get so concerned about "protecting the children" that they want to keep kids from reading really good books. Or from reading really stupid books. Or from reading fun books. There are books now that are big time challenged that I have never read: Real Story of a Part-Time Indian, Speak, Crank. If I were a middle school kid right now I probably would't read them. The material just doesn't interest me. However, I would not have been offended if I had read them at that age. I was always so bored with the crap they made us read in middle school, I actually may have read them just for something exciting. High school was a little bit better in that we got to read some fun challenged books like Huck Finn, Invisible Man, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, and the Sound and the Fury. I liked those books a lot more than most anything they had in the school library. There is nothing wrong with exposing high school students to things that are uncomfortable. Was I comfortable when we read sections of Huck Finn outloud? No. There are certain words used that are not in my vocabulary ever, but there was a point to it. We discussed why it was used in the book, why it wasn't used now, how we felt with the words said outloud. It was a learning opportunity. I think that is what people who ban books miss, that opporunity to teach their kids something.
A book that has a lot of swearing, talk with your kid about why it isn't ok for them to swear like that. A book with sex in it, talk to your kid about why you don't think sex at that age is appropriate. A book that has a different religious or political view, talk to your kid about what you believe, what they believe, and any questions that arise from a different opinion.
My parents let my sister and I read whatever we wanted. I read The Shining by Stephen King when I was 13. My sister read Gone with the Wind when she was pretty young (no idea exactly when). My parents knew what we read, encouraged us to talk to them if we had questions, but then pretty much just trusted us to know what was appropriate. Two final stories, when I was 16 or 17 I went on a church mission trip. The book I happened to be reading at the time was Carrie by Stephen King and I brought it along on the trip. I thought nothing of it. One of the adults on the trip with us talked to my mom after the trip to ask her if she was aware that I was reading a Stephen King book. I was old enough to drive and could get into R rated movies, but someone else's parent didn't know if it was ok for me to read Stephen King. And lastly, when I was a freshman in high school I had to read a book off of a recommended reading list. I chose Cold Sassy Tree (no idea why). When I went to check it out from the public library, with my mom standing right there, the librarian asked me if I knew that it was a rather mature book and asked my mom if it was alright for me to be reading that. That is where censorship comes from. A concern that something might be offensive. But it wasn't anyone's problem except for mine. No one else should be able to tell someone what they can or can't read. Everyone has a different read level, tolerance of offensive material, and perspective. We all just need to leave everyone else alone and just read what we want to.
Most banned book week posts encourage you to read a challenged book. I am not going to. I encourage you to read whatever the hell you feel like reading. If that is a banned book, great. If that is a completely non-offensive story, great. Just read what you want and tell everyone else to screw off.
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