Conveniently enough, I just bought a copy of The Handmaid's Tale
. But it would also be a perfect excuse to re-read A Wrinkle in Time
. I don't understand banning books. Granted, not all of these books are appropriate for children. But still, what does banning books really accomplish? It's ineffective, and it's intellectually lazy. If a book is considered racist or sexist or class-ist or anti-Semitic or anti-God or just plain scary, maybe the key isn't to ban it or ignore it, but to teach kids about the what the book represents, the time and the history and the context in which it was written, and -- hopefully -- how we've grown as a society since then. Or if the book contains -- egads!-- sex, well, maybe we should just finally admit that kids are already learning about it from television and movies and pop culture in general, get over ourselves, and teach them about it in classrooms -- rather than waiting for them to figure it out for themselves in the backseats of cars and on prom night.
Besides, there's an element of reverse psychology at play. If you tell a high school kid not to read Catcher in the Rye or Harry Potter or The Anarchist's Cookbook or whatever, guess what their favorite book is going to wind up being?
4 comments:
I'm surprised that Wrinkle in Time is banned. It's well written and such a blatant mortality tale that I'd have thought parents would beg their kids to read it.
Freudian slip? I meant "morality" not "mortality".
The worst thing about the banning of books is that in many of the cases the books banned have been the ones with the most important things to say.
I can't think of anything more ignorant than banning a book. If a come upon something that says something I don't like, I simply don't read it, and choose to read something else instead...
Anyway, if you want to see something funny that's related to this topic, check this out.
Utenzi: I think people don't get it. They think it's supernatural and anti-God, when really it's just the opposite.
Chaim: Exactly. If you don't like it, don't read it. And if you don't want your kids to read it, parent them -- instead of waiting for the school or the government to do it for you.
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