Mundie Moms

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Mundie Moms Supports Banned Books Week


Mundie Moms is celebrating Banned Book Week all month long. But what is Banned Book Week?

"Held during the last week of September since 1982, Banned Books Week not only encourages readers to examine challenged literary works, but also promotes intellectual freedom in libraries, schools, and bookstores. Its goal is "to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society." (quoted from here http://tinyurl.com/296zdu8)

It's not just graphic words that get books banned, it's also the topic of race, sexuality, religious beliefs and so on. Books are an outlet. A place to expand our imaginations or to get lost in. They can also be a great source of help when we're going through a difficult time. Sometimes we read books to gain a better understand of a subject matter, or read them to escape reality. Books reflect both imagination and reality.

Banning a book is a form of censorship I don't agree with. Yes, I understand that sometimes certain books don't belong in schools, and that topic *might* be discussed in a different post. I am against someone banning a book, because they don't feel my child should read it. As a parent, I feel that it's up to me, and only me on whether or not my child should read the book. What may be too graphic for my child, may be a book the next child can completely relate to.

I've done a lot of research into banned books and I've been completely shocked at books I found on the list. These were books I read in middle school and high school. Some of them challenged me to think outside of the box and others sparked class room discussions. They made us, as young adults think for ourselves, share our views and thoughts on what we read and also the world around us.

In my research for banned book lists, I read from state lists and as well as the American Library Association's list. Here's just a few examples of banned books and one or more reasons on why it was banned:

The Grapes of Wrath was banned because of the way it portrayed America.

The Diary of Anne Frank- Seriously!? It's a diary of a young girl during WWII and what it was like for her. In researching this more, it looks like the original version of the book had more sexually explicit material in it, as Anne wrote about her growing and changing body. I'll refrain from commenting further...

The Harry Potter Series- Not only has Harry Potter been banned in schools in the US and UK, but it's also been banned in libraries. The three major reasons for it's banning 1) they promote witch craft 2) they set bad examples 3) they're too dark. When is the war with good vs evil ever light?

The Twilight Series- for being sexually explicit... REALLY!?!

Speak- For talking about rape. Okay, I just want to throw this out there that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men will be sexually assaulted in their life time and college women are 4 times more likely to be sexually assaulted (quoted from RAINN's site).

Tom Swayer & The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Banned for racism.

AND my favorite-

The Dictionary -was banned in a school district in California because it has a sexually explicit word in it... I'll let you read the rest here-http://tinyurl.com/2cfpvhg. That floors me that The Dictionary was banned over one word (even though the banned has sense been reversed).

Others include: To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Call Of The Wild, The BFG, The Giving Tree, Harriet The Spy, Indian In The Cupboard, Little House On The Prairie, Roll of Thunder Here My Cry, The Merchant of Venice, Canterbury Tales, The Absolute True Diary of a Part Time Indian, and A Wrinkle In Time to name a few.

Here's a list of banned books from the American Library Association-

20th Century top 100 Banned/Censored Novels:

100 most censored/banned books from 2000-2009:

All month long we're going to be talking about banned books and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter. Be sure to join us the week of September 25th-October 2nd for Banned Book Week, as we'll be having a variety of authors sharing their thoughts with us about censorship and banned books.

5 comments:

  1. Book banning and censorship is one and the same.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why don't you come on over and join Ban This!???


    http://litbites.blogspot.com/2010/08/ban-this-2010.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's always interesting to see what book was banned recently. Twilight? Really? Hmmm. Too much talking, not enough reading, me thinks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. They had all different kinds of books that were banned at school last year and during lunch my friends and I were just completely surprise.
    Some of the books that were there were really good books.
    To Kill a Mockingbird is probably my favorite classic book.
    This is ridiculous.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Donna- Thank you for the link. We decided to do something on our own this year. :)

    Taffy- I hear ya. Twilight totally surprised me.

    Libby- I was totally shocked at how many classics are on the list. I read a lot of them in high school. Someone has way too much time on their hands with all the books on banned lists.

    ReplyDelete

Labels