Banned books...good idea or ridiculous?
I have no life. Along with having no life comes with being bored and looking up things on the internet. Since my knowledgable friend, Stacie, told me that A Clockwork Orange has been banned at sometime from schools I decided to look at a list of banned books. I'm going to post up some that I found particularly amusing. Most likely there will be some side comments from myself. Enjoy!
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll. Ace; Bantam; Crown; Delacorte; Dover; NAL; Norton; Penguin; Random; St. Martin. Banned in China (1931) for portraying animals and humans on the same level, "Animals should not use human language." Well, duh...it's fiction.
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne Frank. Modern Library. Challenged in Wise County, Va. (1982) due to "sexually offensive" passages. Four members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee (1983) called for the rejection of this book because it is a "real downer." Okay, so I can see the whole "sexually offensive" passages part, but because it's a "real downer"? Life in general is a real downer, so get over it!
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya Angelou. Bantam. This book gets challenged quite often, due to the poet's descriptions of being raped as a young girl. Of course reading things like that is not pretty, but I think it's important that high school students should be able to read something personal and obscene like this...mostly because it is something that they need to aware of.
Where's Waldo? Martin Handford. Little. Challenged at the Public Libraries of Saginaw, Mich. (1989), Removed from the Springs Public School library in East Hampton, N.Y. (1993) because there is a tiny drawing of a woman lying on the beach wearing a bikini bottom but no top. Yes, but did they find Waldo? Come on now, that's just funny!
The Bible - The holy book of Christianity, it was claimed in Minnesota that its "lewd, indecent and violent contents are hardly suitable for young students." I'm not extremely religious, but seriously....
The Loraxby: Dr. Seuss - Banned in the Laytonville, California School District on grounds that this book "criminalizes the forestry industry." WHAT?! Who thinks about that when they're 6 years old?!
Hmmm, so why don't we just ban every single book that has ever been published? Apparently that would sound like a good idea from the list of banned books I've seen. Anyways, please leave your comments. I'd love to hear them!