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Banned Books - Read any lately?

namedujour

namedujour

New Member
Here is a link to the 100 most challenged books of the 1990s: http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm

I'm just curious as to how many of these books everyone has read - and loved. Most of them are children's books, but you'll see that isn't always the case. Some of them used to be required reading in school.

Note: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is higher on the list than Sex by Madonna.

The list particularly dislikes Stephen King, though Raoul Dahl takes a hit as well. And don't get me started on Judy Blume.

To Kill a Mockingbird is on that list, as is Flowers for Algernon - both required reading in my school. Huckleberry Finn as well. I'm thinking I must be irrevocably damaged by my reading history, but oddly, don't feel that way. How about you?
 
I've only read about 10 of the books on that list...
Why is Harry Potter on that list? Don't really understand why there is such a list.
 
Harry Potter is occult. You'd be amazed how much influence the church (or religion) has in all this.

Cheers
 
In the minds of the censors, you've read 10 books too many. And are therefore corrupt.

Harry Potter is on the list because wizardry is demonic. A Wrinkle in Time is on the list because it vaguely suggests (in one paragraph) that there are great souls throughout history in addition to Jesus who have been fighting the forces of evil.

The list and the effort to ban these books is intended to avert wrong-thinking in children. Schools cannot order banned books, and libraries are discouraged from offering them.

Which, of course, means that kids will try and get their hands on them any way they can. I did a research paper on book banning, and studies show that kids are more apt to read books they're told not to. So really, the list is a good way to get a kid to read Huckleberry Finn, if everything else you've tried has failed.
 
I've read ten of them too: the Harry Potters, the Roald Dahls, the Stephen Kings, The Handmaid's Tale, To Kill A Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies. The last two were read as part of my English lessons at school.

Most of the objections are probably to do with sexual or religious references, because that's what people tend to get most het up about. I seem to remember that some people object to Harry Potter because of the witchcraft and wizardry, and how this might encourage devil worship(!!!!)

Roald Dahl is probably on the list because his books tend to subvert the usual power relationship between adults and children (i.e., children are often shown being in control of, or besting adults and making them look silly.)
 
I've read 28 of them, many at the encouragement of my parents (thanks parents!) I understand why many of them are on the the list (I think it's wrong, but I can see the twisted logic).

However, can someone tell me why number 88 - Where's Waldo is on the list? Are we talking about the same book where you have to find the geeky looking guy in various pictures? That, I don't get!
 
In case anyone gets the mistaken impression that these books are banned overall in America, that is not the case.

In the US, books can be banned at a very local level, in school districts and libraries, or at the state level. I think instances of nationwide banning are very rare, probably none recently. The website below lists loads and load of banned books and who banned them and why.

It's interesting that sometimes books are banned for one or two words, sometimes they are banned because people object to the world they portray, no matter how true it is to real life.


I think in the UK (maybe other European countries too) banning is a national phenomenon, like the recent banning of the latest Kitty Kelley book, the one about the Bush Dynasty.

In the UK it seems more serious, in that it is an overall gov't policy that makes the book illegal throughout the nation, whereas in the US, it's just a formal censorship against having it in the school curriculum. No books are banned from being sold in stores or being owned.

In the case of the Bush/Kelley book banned in UK, the excuse was that the libel laws in the UK are so stringent that the book would certainly come under attack and lose. Funny, Kelley writes these books all the time (incediary unauthorized biographies) and has never lost a libel case--apparently she's very good at sourcing her material. So, what's that about? I think politics might have been a factor? :rolleyes:

That said, there's an embargo being disputed right now on books authored by Iranian nationals. Not sure of the details offhand, but it is a political embargo meant to restrict trade, though it seems to only restrict information exchange and hurt US publishers. Essentially US publishers are barred from publishing Iranian nationals' books.

Hay, you ask why such a list exists: it is a collection of disparate cases meant to illustrate the overall vulnerability of literature and lack of common sense. It is not an indication of what the typical school district would do. All the school districts in my area allow all these books.

In fact, most of these books are still on reading lists and in libraries in schools around the US. The US does not allow national banning without a serious and profound reason, such as national security (selling of books on how to make home-made bombs would fall into such a category, and are still not banned). The argument made that allows banning in school districts is that parents have a right to control what their children are exposed to, but that's as far as it extends. Some libraries do something similar, but I think it makes them ineligible for certain federal funding.


Note that most of these bannings were very short lived and limited in other ways. Most of the so-called censors on the list of banners and censors are political columnists and pundits who have no real control over such matters. Who cares what they say? Nobody has to act on their misguided opinions.




http://www.banned-books.com/bblist.html
 
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! :D I laughed hysterically for ten minutes. Then I realised the author might have been serious and became very, very worried.

Proof, if any were needed, that you can read what the heck you like into any fiction. Also, the person who wrote that article cannot even get the characters' names right (Nearly-Headless Dick??) :rolleyes:
 
ksheppard said:
Also, for those who want to see the "reasoning" behind banning Harry Potter, check out this link:

http://www.exposingsatanism.org/harrypotter2.htm
Click to expand...

I would bet J.K. Rowling had no idea she was that deep!

This reminds me of the joke about the guy who was shown ink blots by his psychiatrist. He described something luridly sexual happening in each one. So the psychiatrist says, "You have an obsession with sex." The guy answers, "No, YOU do! What's the matter with you, showing me all these dirty pictures?!!"
 
namedujour said:
In the minds of the censors, you've read 10 books too many. And are therefore corrupt.

Harry Potter is on the list because wizardry is demonic. A Wrinkle in Time is on the list because it vaguely suggests (in one paragraph) that there are great souls throughout history in addition to Jesus who have been fighting the forces of evil.

The list and the effort to ban these books is intended to avert wrong-thinking in children. Schools cannot order banned books, and libraries are discouraged from offering them.

Which, of course, means that kids will try and get their hands on them any way they can. I did a research paper on book banning, and studies show that kids are more apt to read books they're told not to. So really, the list is a good way to get a kid to read Huckleberry Finn, if everything else you've tried has failed.
Click to expand...

This is more than a little misleading. See my post below.

Why give the impression that this is an overall policy in America when it's far from that? Most school districts in the US don't ban any books. None ban ALL of these.

As Martin said (sort of), the most fundamentalist Christian towns tend to ban a few, based on the most rabid parents being the most vocal. Usually such bannings only last a year or two, until the kids of those rabid Christians run away from home, get addicted to meth, or kill themselves.
 
novella said:
This is more than a little misleading. See my post below.

Why give the impression that this is an overall policy in America when it's far from that? Most school districts in the US don't ban any books. None ban ALL of these.

As Martin said (sort of), the most fundamentalist Christian towns tend to ban a few, based on the most rabid parents being the most vocal. Usually such bannings only last a year or two, until the kids of those rabid Christians run away from home, get addicted to meth, or kill themselves.
Click to expand...

Well, it's not intended to mislead. These books are challenged, according to the ALA -- that's a fact. My intention to point out that there are efforts afoot to discourage and remove them from schools - something akin to attempts at "belief control," in my opinion. And in some areas they ARE removed, your area notwithstanding.

You aren't concerned, which suggests you feel the list is useful and are not worried that it could be taken further. I take the opposite position. There are people (teachers, schools, parents) who read that list, and forbid students from reading To Kill a Mockingbird -- somewhere, perhaps not in your area. (I'm in the South where they taught my son in Middle School science class that the earth is 6,000 years old, and in social studies taught him that "yin and yang" is a symbol of Satan.)

So there are teachers, parents and schools that think they're doing the right thing because someone compiled a list and told them what to think. Whether it's legally enforced or not is beside the point. The list is used in places - perhaps not yours. It's consulted by parents, perhaps not you.

Interestingly, Brave New World is also on the list.

My concern stems from a phone call I received recently from someone posing as an employee of a company that conducts "surveys." When he began asking questions, it became clear that it was political or religious (or both) propaganda rather than a survey. The questions were loaded beyond belief.

"Do you want to protect your children from the increasing depravity and violence foisted upon us by the entertainment industry against our will?" There are people who will be thoroughly convinced at the end of that "survey" that Hollywood needs to be nuked. And that is the objective of the organization that conducted it.

It was scary to me that they were chasing me down in order to alter my opinion, which is this: You have to stand up to censorship.
 
namedujour said:
You aren't concerned, which suggests you feel the list is useful and are not worried that it could be taken further.

So there are teachers, parents and schools that think they're doing the right thing because someone compiled a list and told them what to think. Whether it's legally enforced or not is beside the point. The list is used in places - perhaps not yours. It's consulted by parents, perhaps not you.

My concern stems from a phone call I received recently from someone posing as an employee of a company that conducts "surveys." When he began asking questions, it became clear that it was political or religious (or both) propaganda rather than a survey. The questions were loaded beyond belief.

"
It was scary to me that they were chasing me down in order to alter my opinion, which is this: You have to stand up to censorship.
Click to expand...

Why do you think I'm not concerned? How can you draw such an erroneous idea from my post?

My post was merely to inform those posters who don't live in the US (majority of this board is from UK and elsewhere) that this list should not be misconstrued as national policy.

If you knew me at all, you would know that I'm anticensorship, that I have a 14 year old who reads everything, and that educational issues are very important to me. I'm a writer, former editor, former newspaper columnist, and activist.

I agree that it IS scary when pollsters invade your privacy in order to build some spurious picture of public opinion. I'm actively against such practices, and a vocal proponent of statewide do-not-call lists.

What my post points out, that yours pointedly omits, is that these are mainly isolated short-lived incidents. They have always happened in US history and probaby always will. It's bad educational policy, but that is the inevitable outcome of state and local rights, as written into the Constitution.

In my experience, the US is too often judged abroad by isolated pockets of extremism, and my post was intended to counter that. It said nothing about how I feel about censorship.
 
novella said:
Why do you think I'm not concerned? How can you draw such an erroneous idea from my post?
Click to expand...

Please stop using a confrontational or derisive or aghast tone, and I will stop misreading your posts and position. I omitted something but the post got your attention, and the underlying issue still remains.

If the Morality Police are hunting me down to foist upon me their opinions about the entertainment industry, and to suggest that I am a bad parent for not answering Yes to every one of their inane questions, they are feeling increasingly emboldened. The strategy is to make you feel like a bad person if you don't agree with them. People generally like to believe that they are "nice" so the ploy is effective in persuading people to think in those terms: "That's what nice is? Okay. I'm nice, so that's what I believe too." (Except me - if you call me up to bother me, I already don't like you and will probably hang up before you get to me. As I did with that survey guy.) So they're no doubt gaining support.

Emboldened people expand their efforts, and a concurrent effort is going on to ban books. This is a bad thing, and you agree. While it won't ever be successful (there are sites out there that exist solely to post books that are banned in one country or another, and furthermore, it would require changes to the Constitution), it's like wearing a pair of shoes (read this as "cultural environment") that hurts. You can still walk, but you don't want to in those shoes. And it changes people's opinions about the value of literature, which is probably more effective than attempting an outright ban.

The trick is to be aware of this, and to probably make your book selections from the banned list first. What is it that they don't want you to know? What kind of thought processes do they find threatening? Mostly it's all smoke and nonsense, and reading sex into every ink blot they see. (Waldo is having sex with a purple Tele-Tubby somewhere in Where's Waldo - that's the only explanation). But don't cheat yourself because someone else is trying to cheat you by labeling a good book "bad."

Being in the South, I have ample opportunity to watch as the Morality Police become an increasingly cocky groundswell of sanctimonious watchdogs all around me. They are teaching my children false things in public school (what they teach children in private schools, I have no idea - I suspect it's worse), and this includes what books have value and what books are "bad" based on their criteria, not mine - or from the sound of it, yours. And that is a concern to me. That's all.
 
I've only got through 6 of 'em. Harry Potter (1-5), the 2 Dahls, Catcher in the Rhye, Handmaids Tale, and Goosebumps (1-god knows how many). I did laugh at that last one. It really annoys me when people try to ban things that they disagree with, without any regard that others may not share their viewpoint. They dont seem to realise that if they succeed, people who WANT to read those books wont be able to because of thier desire to force personal beliefs down peoples throats. Fair enough if they dont want thier kids to read them fine, thats their choice, and also thier responsibility. I also fail to see how pretendiing that anything they dont agree with doesn't exist. Which they apparantly hope to delude themselves into thinking by banning everything in sight. I would normally have a pretty hefty dig at religion at this point, as itt seems to be behind most things of this nature, but theres bound to be someone here I'll offend

BTW, have you looked around the rest of the site this link came from?

http://www.exposingsatanism.org/harrypotter2.htm

I really think I might be ill
 
I've read about 20, give or take. Primarily the fiction published before 1990.

These are not banned books, but most frequently challenged. It's funny to read about the mechanics of the actual challenges. Many of them are from parents who are just saying "why does that book have to be required reading? It's so [bleak, boring, depressing, outdated, etc.]"

I'm just picturing myself and some of the things I've said here about my son's required reading for the past few years. He's had SO many works of fiction about diseases, wars, racism, orphaned kids, foster kids, runaways, more diseases, dogs dying, parents getting killed, etc. He brought this to my attention a couple of months ago, saying, No wonder a lot of kids hate reading. He prefers spy books, mysteries, submarine and ship books, LeCarre, Tom Clancy . . .

So if I were to go to a school board meeting and ask this question, would that constitute a challenge? Would that challenge be viewed as an attempt to ban these tragedy novels? Of course, that would not be my intention. But, dang, these reading lists are very bleak.


You have to look closely at these situations to find out what's really going on. The Waldo case was when a little kid found a topless girl sunbathing on one page--her tits were not shown, though. The incident was laughable. I bet there's a whole new market for Where's Naked Waldo now.
 
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