It's banned books week

Can you please provide a link next time?
Banned & Challenged Classics

Reading down your link's list, I am surprised at a number of titles and how many of my favorites are on here.

Ones I consider to be on my all time favorite books:
1984, by George Orwell: My all time favorite book;
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald;
Animal Farm, by George Orwell;
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee....


I tried to read (about 5 time already) to no avail:
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

I read the following. Appreciated them to some degree. Not necessarily on my favorite list:
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair

Some of them I did not care for, but would not ban them.

Catcher in the Rye - Some have suggested I was too old by the time I tackled it. I don't think so. It is just so removed from my life experience I could not get into it.

Lolita - The girl is simply too young. I couldn't read it for that reason.

I was surprised to see Call of the Wild and Gone With the Wind.

There are at least a dozen that I like or are all time favorites, including Catch 22.

There are books I have tried without success to get through, books I thought I should read. The ones I think of are not banned anywhere I know of.

I think this thread is from a liberal world view, the books being mentioned are all books that liberals think are acceptable but cause problems for traditional views on religion, race or gender.

Let's look at this from the other side: What books do you think should be banned?

There have been many attempts to remove religious texts from schools, as well books that people have felt are racist, or sexist of homophobic.

Is there any legitimate reason to ban a book?

You don't ban books for adults. You teach children by withholding what you believe they are not ready for.

I think the valid question is who decides what books are accessible in schools. Most book banning now takes place in schools libraries. The Bible is one of the books that people try to ban from school libraries.

Classics like Dr. Doolittle have been censored... the book is available but entire sections have been cut out because it expresses beliefs on race that were pretty common when the book was written (and now offensive to most of us).

The Xanth books by Piers Anthony have also come under fire because it has story lines that some people consider misogynistic.

Are we really against banning any books from school libraries?

I've read a lot of them, heh! I'll re-look at the list.

Counted them - 19. There are others I might like to read.

What you mean 'we', paleface?

Sorry Edgar. Let me ask the question more directly...

Should any book be allowed in school libraries? Is there a list of books that you would ban, or would you allow any book to be put in a public school library for the students to have access to?

The Bible, the Xanth series and the uncensored Doctor Doolitle are three interesting cases. Would you approve of banning these three examples from your local public school library?

If there is a list of books you disapprove of that you would want banned, then there is contradiction. There are many people who don't want ideas they agree with to be banned (even though other people find them offensive), yet want to ban books and ideas they themselves find offensive.

If you truly believe that books shouldn't be banned, even if you find them offensive (i.e. racist, homophobic or sexist)... then I have no problem with your position.

My personal belief is that pre-high school kids might not be ready for something and so it not be put before them. I am not prepared to name any books that should be withheld. Certainly not Bibles. I don't agree with censoring high school age at all.

Great, then we agree.

Censorship is not a partisan issue. Both sides of the political divide are guilty of it.

You call it censoring. I call it part of teaching. You hold a kid's hand crossing the street. You teach them to not take candy from a stranger. You keep brainwashing fools from approaching them. By high school age, they are able to process and to choose. Of course in this age of cell phones and computers, the younger kids often see everything there is to see anyway. I am not sure what the consequence could be, if any.

Clicking through to the "reasons"

http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics/reasons

I disagree with this post, Edgar. If you brainwash kids to believe what you are absolutely sure is the truth, it is still brainwashing. The fact that you are "right" doesn't change anything.


Teaching is giving all sides to students and letting them reach a different belief than you have. Brainwashing is giving one side of an issue to students and expecting them to believe what you believe. The difference between the two is that at the end of being taught, students will have different beliefs than those of their teacher.

I feel strongly that education should expose students to all sides of important social issues.

My daughter goes to a liberal school in a liberal city (Cambridge MA). She has a liberal father. All of these influences are giving her pro-choice messages. When she started repeating these messages, I felt it was important to expose her to pro-life messages. She had a caricature of pro-life ideas that didn't reflect how people actually felt on this issue. She can make up her mind to be pro-life and pro-choice... but for her to be educated she needs to have thought the issue out for herself rather than just believing what she is told to believe.

That students are exposed to (for example) both pro-life and pro-choice messaging is a good thing... an important part of education... not something that they should protected from.

I don't think censorship is ever a part of education.

That's cool ehBeth.

It is a pretty balanced list with objections from both the right and the left.