What Irony Means:

http://www.hometownglenburnie.com/news/Top_Stories/2010/11/03-34/North+County+High+parents+seek+to+ban+%26%2339%3BBrave+New+World%26%2339%3B%0A.html

Parents trying to ban Brave New World. I've never read Brave New World as I have a slight aversion to "classics" and "must reads" and "omg! everyone NEEDS to read this book!". But doesn't it deal with censorship somewhat. Like, controlling behavior by controlling consumption (if I'm wrong, let me know!). Besides the irony, I have to say, Really? There are still people trying to ban books? Really?

I know I've written about censorship/banning/etc. before, but I'm going to reiterate. The students who are being required to read Brave New World at North County High School are 10th graders in a Science Technology Engineering and Math program. I have no idea what that all means, but I'm guessing it is for advanced kids. Brave New World is also part of the AP English class curriculum. Ok, just to pause for a moments, but the kids who are being exposed to this are at youngest 15. They have their learners permits and have probably seen their fair share of R rated movies. They are at most 3 years from going to college. This is not a question of is a book appropriate for a 12 year old. The average age of the reader is going to be 16 or 17. Anyway, moving on. The parents are concerned with the "explicit sexual content". And apparently the already in place opt-out ability is not enough. That's right, a parent can already keep their sweet little youngster from reading the book. They just can't keep anyone else's hellion from reading it.

Now, I understand parents being active in their kids' lives. I actually consider it a good thing. A great thing, even. But it seems to me that the 250 parents who signed the petition to remove Brave New World from the school are not being active so much as severely overprotecting everyone's kids. Let's break it down with a completely made up example. Mrs. Jones is truly offended that her little Johnny is going to be exposed to Brave New World. She opts him out of reading it. Mrs. Smith thinks that her darling Sarah can read it. Mrs. Jones is so offended by the notion of Sarah reading Brave New World that she starts a petition to remove that book completely from the school, keeping Sarah, who already has permission from her mother to read it, from reading it. Do you see the problem there?

I think the main problem here is not the attempted controlling of other peoples kids. It is the underestimation of high schoolers. For reference, here are some books that I read in high school for a class (the ones I remember):
Freshman Year: The Magnificent Ambersons, Cold Sassy Tree, Romeo & Juliet, Treasure Island, The Odyssey
Sophomore: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Yellow Room, Great Expectations, Candide by Voltaire
Junior: The Sound and the Fury, Catcher in the Rye, Gullivers Travels, Invisible Man
Senior: Lord of the Flies, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Street Car Named Desire, The Grapes of Wrath

I'm sure I read other stuff for class, too (and I definitely read a lot of stuff outside of class), but you get the point. I read some pretty hefty stuff when I was in high school. And only the junior year stuff was for an AP class. I feel like a lot of parents, specifically any parents who try to get books banned, just don't have enough faith in their kids. And sure, there might be someone who isn't prepared to read Brave New World as a Sophomore, but they can opt-out and all the other kids can continue on. Or, here's a radical thought, let Brave New World mature your kid a bit. Sometimes it takes something disturbing in a book to help shape your view of the world. Why is it a bad thing to make teens think or scare them or make them uncomfortable? I scared myself silly with Stephen King books when I started reading them. I was also disturbed by some things in Cold Sassy Tree when I read it as a 14 year old. But it also opened up my mind to a wider world. Sure, Adventures of Huck Finn might make you really squirm with the use of the N word, but it is there for a purpose. It helps you learn and grow.

So, in conclusion...1) parents need to worry about only their kid and leave every other kid alone and 2) parents need to have some more faith in their teenagers' ability to handle a controversial book.

(And no, I'm probably still not going to read Brave New World. Why? Because I just don't care.)