Banned Books
Originally posted at Uncreated Conscience.
As it’s Banned Books Week, I’ve been doing a bit of musing about the subject in the past few days. I just finished John Green’s most excellent PAPER TOWNS (review to follow soon), which I believe was challenged somewhere in this country, although for what conceivable reason I have no idea.
Verboten.
I grew up in a household which banned books. My parents are well-intentioned, lovely people who tried to instill in me a love of reading from an early age. Mum and Dad are not readers themselves, but nevertheless did their best by me. Our nightly routine included Mum bedding me down and Dad reading out loud to me until it was time to switch on the nightlights.
Unfortunately, because my parents are not readers, they didn’t necessarily care to review the books they perfunctorily forbade me to read. For instance, THE BABYSITTERS’ CLUB was proscribed in our house. Why? I have no idea. My mother insisted the books were “trashy”. (She’s never read one in her life.) I had to sneak home a few from the school library. I don’t know what she meant by “trashy”, but I suspect it has something to do with literary quality vs. book quantity. I mean, it doesn’t get more wholesome than THE BABYSITTERS’ CLUB!
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