Introduction: The Story Behind Reading The Stories

I started this blog after a close friend spoke to me about Banned Book Week not too long ago. Banned Book Week is sponsored by the ALA to raise awareness of how book banning affects children, their school libraries and public libraries. I've been out of school for quite a while so I laughed and asked something along the lines of who's wasting their time banning books with so much real evil in the world threatening children and the general public at large? Children are far from being in the throes of a reading epidemic that it almost seems like censoring records. What's the point? I joked that we should start a book club and only read books on the ALA's banned list. I was only joking of course. Book clubs are impossible to orchestrate (I know from experience) and like I said before, no one really likes to read anymore. They'll show up like clockwork if wine is served but don't expect much input or insight into books gone unread.
The idea of banned books kept rattling around in my head for a few weeks and for curiosity's sake, I Googled banned books and boy was I surprised at what I found. Uppity parents and people with nothing to do sure have their scales askew when it comes to what should be deemed 'inappropriate'. Everything from Where's Waldo? (yes the children's find-him book) to Howard Stern's autobiography Private Parts. To me it just didn't make sense. Why are we banning books from public libraries? Banning is the incorrect PR word however.  Too many negative connotations. Makes people believe right off the bat that we are no longer living in a free society. They like to say challenge, as if it makes the process less ridiculous.
I can understand parents not wanting Howard Stern's tawdry tomes in their children's elementary school. It's a book for adults. But why are people trying to parent other adults within the confines of a public library? Don't we have enough of that already in society? Cap and trade energy taxes, sin taxes, food taxes, gasoline taxes, all telling the average citizen from the other end of a wagging finger that 'they' just don't approve and the citizen will be punished. But what may be offensive to you is not necessarily offensive to me.
What really pushed me from mere observation to genuine outrage was when I read that many of the classics I read in high school and college were on the list. In fact Steinbeck and Fitzgerald were repeat offenders on the Banned list. I was shocked that J.R.R.Tolkien made the list as well. Apparently his Christian apologist background wasn't overt enough within the story's plot to excuse away the presence of mythical creatures and magic. Oh no, we can't have children using their imaginations! Steinbeck continues to be one of my favorite authors and his coarse accounts of fictional life in the Salinas Valley have kept me riveted through rainy afternoons and cross country plane trips. And while his books aren't appropriate for elementary school libraries, they have every right to have a permanent place in high school and public libraries for everyone to enjoy. Futuristic Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, a book I discovered in high school and that changed the way I look at life from that day on, was also on the 'those we don't speak of' list. At that point I was livid. There is no way most children would be able to understand the adult implications made and situations referenced in BNW. Most kids aren't that high functioning when it comes to reading so I believe most of these books are hysterical PowerPoints for what are known as Helicopter parents. Parents who continually hover without letting their children experience any of the unpleasant or contrary issues in life. These aren't oopsy situations where a first grader brings home Of Mice And Men and starts reading it of his own accord. These are lazy and overprotective parents who are preemptively striking libraries to save themselves parenting time and panic.
When I was in the third grade, I brought home a book called The Girl With The Silver Eyes about a girl who is telepathic and has the ability to read animals' minds and also move objects with her mind. It was a book geared to elementary school children but my mom took one look at it and thought she didn't want me reading about evil mind control (SO not what the book was about but whatever, it was a good twenty odd years ago). She nixed it and had me take it back to the library. End of story. My mom monitored my reading habits until I was in high school at which point she figured that I needed to develop my own discernment to be a responsible adult one day. When I was a junior in high school a fellow student got a well liked English teacher in hot water for having the class read The Color Purple. A classic anointed by Oprah herself. That book is standard fare in any public college. The teacher later left the district which was a terrible loss of a phenomenal teacher. When I went away to college, I became an English Lit major which meant I had to read a lot of crap I hated and found immaterial to the course and some stuff that was downright offensive but I also developed my own opinions about topics through the discussions and papers I had to write on said books. Plus it's all part of living within a society and using discernment. And some ridiculous, convoluted paranoia about encountering something offensive in a book doesn't stop me from reading. Reading is a favorite pastime and how I spent a great deal of my childhood. Parents need to do their jobs as parents and monitor their own children's reading habits. But MYOB needs to be respected as well. You don't have authority on what my child or someone else's child has access to read. Your child may be sheltered enough to believe vampires are real or you may be extremely religious and don't care for mythical fiction altogether. Fine. There are Boxcar Children books that are very milquetoast. (Although on second thought, I think they're orphans so you may feel uncomfortable with your child being faced with that reality. Sorry.) But if I've already had the vampires aren't real talk with my kids and I've read the Twilight books and think they are fine for my kids, don't exercise your non-existent parental rights over my children (who are hypothetical at this point) and what they have access to read. Parents need to do their own job with their own kids about what is acceptable and have discussions with their children about the whys.
So why am I here? Well as a reader as well as an English major, I've read a lot of the books on the Banned Classics list as well as the top 100 banned books from 1990 to 2009. A lot but not all. And not many from the last few years. So I just can't resist the idea of weighing in on what passes for banned books here in 21st century America. My goal is to spend the next year reading 20 (this seemed like a nice round number, setting the bar not too high and not too low--hopefully) books I selected from the Banned list and blogging about them right here. My expectations are relatively fluid and yet to be determined at this point. Just taking it book by book. What this WON'T be is a bunch of book reports. I did more than my share of book reports in elementary school and middle school. And even high school. So I'm quite finished in that arena here and forevermore. I'll probably blog two to three times per book depending on if there's much to blog about. And so begins my journey into (apparently) the dangerous world of books....