TGIF ~ Banned Books

 

 

TGIF is hosted by the Lovely Ginger at GReads! She also made the graphic! Click the image to visit her!

This weeks Question:

How do you feel about the censorship of the freedom to read? Do you think the education system needs to be more strict on what children are exposed to in books?

 

I believe that a challenge on a book is a direct violation of our first amendment rights. I will never understand the need to make decisions for other people. At least when a government wants to ban a book I can understand their motivation, they want to restrict the ideas that their people have access to. Do I agree with this? Not at all, but I can at least make sense of it in a twisted way.

What completely defies reason for me is when a private citizen decides that no one else should be allowed to read something that they themselves find offensive. My first reaction is to act like a child and say something clever like “You are not the Boss of me!” My second reaction is similar, but it is more a grown up kind of anger. The kind that calls us to action when we feel that we are being wronged in a way that challenges us to the core of our beliefs. My core belief is that we are all created equal and should have the right to choose for ourselves and no one else.

I feel like it is almost unfair for me to answer the second question since I homeschool my children.  Interestingly though, one of the many instances that led me to the decision to home school was that my child kept bringing home the local newspaper when he was in third or fourth grade. He was supposed to read through the paper and then write about current events.  This enraged me. For one thing, the newspaper was much too difficult for him to even read and comprehend.  More importantly though, I felt like the content was completely inappropriate for him to be reading.  I can not think of a worse thing for a ten year old to ask you than “what is rape?”

That does not mean that I sheltered my child and never talked to him about protecting himself and what parts of his body are private. The key in that is that I talked to him, I used language that he could understand.  I do not want my child reading about murder and all the other myriad of criminal activity detailed in the local paper.  I also never once thought that because I did not approve of it, it should be banned so that no one else could read it either. I believe in having the right to choose for my self, my children and no one else. 

I also want to clarify something. I am far from an expert on the subject but I have been researching the subject of banned books for a while in preparation for this week. There are a few misconceptions I have seen on twitter and a few other places about this week that I would like to clear up. I think that perhaps the title “Banned Books” has given some people the wrong impression.

There are (to the best of my knowledge) no books that are currently banned by the government of the United States. The books that are on the lists on the ALA website refer to books that are challenged in an attempt to ban them from certain libraries or schools. There have been some books that have been successfully taken out of certain places but in the majority of cases they are not. You can read more about this on the ALA website.