banning books

Last week marked Banned Books Week. In a somewhat similar vein, I also noticed a news story detailing how former president George W. Bush once denied JK Rowling a Presidential award because he believed Harry Potter “encouraged witchcraft.”

When discussing this with friends, Shawn argued that spells and flying brooms aside, the Harry Potter books ultimately focus on good trumping evil and the power of friendship. I want to add to his remarks one thing that Dubya needed to consider: this was the first series of books to get modern-day kids—across all demographics and many nationalities—to love reading. It had the power to pull them out from behind their computers and Wiis and actually read books. And big books at that. It’s no small feat getting a child to read a 700-page book! It encouraged them to use their imagination, too. The president should have celebrated that, not condemned it!

The book-banning thing always amazed me. I never understood how books that are staples in so many high school English classes (Tom Sawyer, To Kill a Mockingbird) can be banned in other schools. You’d think there’d be some sense of uniformity across the board. Also, I understand why a high school might be afraid to keep Lady Chatterley’s Lover on its shelves, but what the hell is so offensive about Of Mice and Men? I don’t buy into their whole “Oh, it contains violence and sexual innuendo” bollocks. As Shawn pointed out, the Bible is rife with violence and sexual innuendo. And if the alleged violence in a classic novel were truly a problem, no high school English classes would teach those books. Not that this would justify banning the book, mind you. To me, reading is reading, and it’s always a good thing. Who cares if a teen boy only wants to pick up Lady Chatterley’s Lover to read the dirty bits. At least he’s reading.

The people who ban books are so often punchdrunk with fear. Books are powerful tools—I understand that. There’s a quote in my collection that comes to mind: “Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life’.” Books truly can change your life, and book banners are afraid of that. They’re afraid, for example, that their good little Christian children might start questioning their faith if they read a certain book. But you’ve got to let your kid think for him or herself and you’ve got to believe that you did a solid enough job of raising to him or her to ensure that s/he won’t immediately descend into a life of debauchery and murder just because s/he reads Crime and Punishment and s/he won’t start blowing up buildings just because s/he reads The Anarchist’s Cookbook. I recently finished reading a book about fascists taking control of America (It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis) and it didn’t inspire me to become a fascist dictator.

To skitterish parents I want to say: Raise your kid as best as you possibly can and hope that when you send him or her out into the world, s/he’ll be okay and will be able to read books about anything and everything and still behave responsibly afterward.




song heard most recently before posting:
From the Morning—Nick Drake