Books are important. They're up there with water and oxygen and love. But people are so afraid. They're afraid of war and sex and witchcraft and religion and death. So they try to hide it all behind government regulations, because they don't want their children exposed to "that kind of thing". But why? After all, life is "that kind of thing". Censorship is unhealthy. It's just another form of repression that contributes to building messed-up adults who are not comfortable enough with themselves and their world to be happy.
In related news... did you know that Where's Waldo was the 88th most frequently challenged book from 1990 to 2000?
I think that I speak for most everybody when I say WTF?! (Apparently there's a topless woman in the beach scene... or so says my trusty informer)
Anyhow.
Vive le livre!
Just a few of the at-one-time-or-another challenged/banned books that reside so happily in my home.(from top to bottom: The Giver by Lois Lowry; A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess; Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling; The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler; The Witches by Roald Dahl; To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee; A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle; Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll; The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket; and [on the right, obscuring my face] The Arabian Nights)
Reading no matter what they say and yours...
1 comment:
The funniest thing about banded books are that they are probably some of the best books ever written. Three cheers for all books banned and even the books on question to be banned. They are the best.
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