Happy Banned Books Week!!!

This week marks a very, very important week in a reader's life: Banned Books Week. I can't help but be grateful for the American Library Association's fight against people who desire to make their values force everyone else to change their behavior. I know my reading history would not be as rich and beautiful if the book-banners had won. I wouldn't have read Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God or Twain's Huck Finn.

I do remember in elementary school when some parents' complaints made the library set up a permission slip system in order for students to access the back office, which housed the Goosebumps series. I was never a huge fan...it was always a series that I read when I couldn't find anything else that I was much interested in reading, but even as a young 5th grader, I thought it seemed unfair. So many kids at that time only read Goosebumps, and there really wasn't anything all that scary or inappropriate about them. Looking back now, I think parents should have just been grateful for Goosebumps because it made their children meet their self-selected reading goals with less opposition and fighting :)

I just always thought that the arguments for banning books seemed completely ridiculous. The common citation of the "n" word as a reason to ban the book just doesn't make sense. These books, including the above-mentioned Huck Finn and Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, allow students to talk about and deal with the historical and contemporary issues surrounding race, that word itself, and what it means. I think it expands a student's understanding; it certainly doesn't make every student a racist. Funny thing is, most of the books that are banned that include the "n" word or the "f" word or many others, actually lead to students expanding their minds, opening them up to other cultures, etc (To Kill a Mockingbird, in particular, comes to mind here). Maybe that's what some parents are really afraid of: their children being challenged in school, leading to them moving away from their parents closed minds and being more accepting. And if parents really have moral issues with books in libraries or schools, maybe they should set up an alternative specifically for their children rather than force that moral issue on all students/library patrons.

What do you think? Am I too critical of book banners? How are you celebrating Banned Books Week?