Book Banning and You

[Sarah Stahr]

Okay, this going to sound off. Not sayin' we're banning books, but.. Have you ever seen it hit home?
I found this, maybe five minutes ago:

http://www.sibbap.org/bookshl.htm
http://www.pabbis.org/

They're a parents league against pretty much every book with anything related to 'naughtiness' they could find. LfA is (obviously) on it, along with Catcher in the Rye, Perks of Being a Wallflower, etc.

But what hits me is where they're located: One hour from my house. They're all Virginians, the whole lot. This hurts, that there's this huge mass of people conspiring against me to hold literature away from me... It's wierd, they think they're helping me... By listing books with the word 'butt' in them. No joke.

Has this happened to you? Finding the banners? Or are they just little blurps of your screen and could care less? Post away, argue, whatever, but I want to know what you think. I'm upset, but fearful too...

[gabrielle]

It's never really been an issue for me. My mom has always been ok with me reading whatever I was interested in. She trusted me to be able to judge for myself how the book fit with my morals. I think the problem is parents not trusting their children. They don't think their kids can hang on to their morals while reading a book that challenges those morals which then leads to them actually being incapable of having and forming their own personal opinions.

[Sword_of_Light]

My wife was infuriated to find that all references to tobacco were removed from an edition of Wind in the WIllows ... while neither I or my wife are smokers, nor do we support it, it seems a bit draconian to remove all refereces to it from media - especially something written in a time when everyone smoked - thats like pixilating Humphry Bogard for smoking. Also in that copy of Wind in the Willows, an entire chapter where the animals meet the god Pan was removed. That really ticked us off, since you just dont delete an entire chapter without a specific agenda, and that agenda was clearly a religious one.

-Don

[Jackie]

My dad once bought several boxes full of books in an auction. Most of them weren't exactly classic literature, but they stayed in our shelves for years. One day I went home to visit and found mom tearing apart all the books she objected to. I was livid, because they could be donated. It was a totally useless move because the ones I wanted to read, I had already read and my younger brother wasn't interested in any of them, and probably at this time had his own porn stash already. I was only angry because she gave away the one book I really loved in there. People from her generation consider the author a dirty obscene pornographer, but this book was awesome in a literary sense, had almost nothing at all about sex, and much of politics and social critics of the 1960's. And it's not even that he would be a bad influence to me politically, because he was totally reactionary and ultraconservative and I'm not. I just wanted the book because it was really great to read. And the new editions being published now don't have my favourite short story in them!!! WTF!
Ahem. But ok, this is nothing at all like politically organized groups trying to ban books for everybody else's children instead of just their own. And we don't really have this kind of groups in Brazil, so no.

[Jackie]

Nelson Rodrigues.

[BSmith]

"Bad is not for us to determine. Bad is what you determine is bad. Bad is what you think is bad for your child. What each parent considers bad varies and depends on their unique situation, family and values. The main purpose of this webpage is to identify some books that might be considered bad and why someone might consider them bad. Another purpose of this webpage is to provide information related to bad books in schools."

It seems to me that the point of the website is to inform parents not ban books. While your parents might not have an issue with you analyzing any of those books in depth, other parents might. The website is there to help parents decide if their children are of the correct maturity level to be reading and analyzing those books in school. From my brief skimming of the website, they're not advocating banning books. They're advocating that parents become informed about the literature their children are reading. Like it or not, the parents of minors have the right to decide what content is brought before their children. Part of parenting is deciding when a child is mature enough to handle certain subjects.

I think all of those books should be available through the library system if children or their parents want to read them. They shouldn't be banned from the library. However, some of them are not necessarily the best choices for in depth analysis by every English class.

[Sarah Stahr]

What scares me is how it's being used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Looking_for_Alaska

The PABBIS posted this. Or at least, one parent who found it.

Maybe I'm biased, but the pages seem inclined to help parents find what's wrong with a book, not what the book is. Looking for Alaska is more than just a blowjob. But on the pages, that's all they see it as, a 221 paged blowjob. But Catcher in the Rye is more than just a prostitute and several f-bombs. That's probably what gets to me, their objectionary view. But why doesn't the pages even give the inside cover description, or even a synopsis? Would that be better? Or am I crazy (well, I am crazy, but crazy about this)?

[leo]

the website may not be advocating banning the books, but they are clearly against children reading these books and are presenting parents with out of context information.

If a parent wants to decide whether their child reads a certain book, the parent should read it first and decide if its language or themes are justified.

if a parent cant be bothered to read a book, they shouldnt stop their child from reading it.

[Laura Abbott]

I have to say that I've never heard it happening much in the UK. There was an instance of some small toyshops not stocking Harry Potter merchandise because they thought it promoted witchcraft but otherwise I haven't heard of book banning at all. I went to a church run school and some of the books that I read there would have possibly been considered innapropriate my crazy book banners.

I think in some way these people who want to ban books see it as an easy way to feel like they are being "good christians" or "traditionalists", whatever they subscribe to. If it wasn't for books they would find something else to blame. In the UK I would say that we have more issues with music, some rock music thought to be calling people to join satan. But that's a completely different discussion.

What always amuses me is the fact that those trying to ban the book haven't read the whole book. They've heard it's got a sex scene or something else in it but it's not in context. As John has said before the sex scene in his book is awkward and if anything promotes the concept of waiting.

Thinking about people my age and lower. Those who were having sex young were not normally those who would be in the library reading books.

[Jackie]

>Those who were having sex young were not normally those who would be in the library reading books.

ROFL, so true. You're totally right. And then when they start they know how do be responsible about it.

[IMGOINGTOBEMARGO]

This is random, but did anyone else notice that a lot of the books on the list had "Alice" in the title? Aperently Alice is a very naughty girl. XD