It's Banned Books Week

[BOZ]

although it tends to generate controversy.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

About once a year in the town where I grew up, someone would decide to take a run at the school board about banning books from school libraries. The most common book parents tried to ban was -- wait for it -- Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends. Apparently the poem about the little girl who dies because she doesn't get a pony frightened them.

Luckily they were never successful (as far as I remember, anyway) -- it always seemed like a legistlative solution to a parenting problem, to me. Teach your kid the difference between fiction and reality, already!

But then, I hang out in a basement pretending to be a dwarf, so who am I to talk?

 

[Jdvn1]

How can anybody let such groups get aaway with this kind of behavior?

I'd like to point out that while some school systems ban these books, other school systems have these books as required reading.

 

[Servitor of Wrath]

The most common book parents tried to ban was -- wait for it -- Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends. Apparently the poem about the little girl who dies because she doesn't get a pony frightened them.

That's...just...no.

 

[ssampier]

I think the message is READ, whether "banned books" or not.

 

[GlassJaw]

I'd like to point out that while some school systems ban these books, other school systems have these books as required reading.

Just for fun, why don't we list the states these schools are in?

 

[Shemeska]

Just for fun, why don't we list the states these schools are in?

FWIW, my examples are in North Carolina, though a decidedly more purple area of the state if (to use a Red/Blue state analogy), based on your question, you're looking for political stuff in state listings. My examples won't help you there.

In my own experience, there were two seperate attempts to ban (at a school level) 'A Wrinkle In Time' by Madeleine L'Engle. The first time, in 7th grade was because the book 'had religion in it' which 'violated church/state seperation'. The second time, a year later, someone else raised a commotion because 'a guy on the cover of the book had red eyes', which apparently meant the book had satanic themes. So both fringes of the spectrum.

The other book was 'Diary of Anne Frank' because of a few lines written during the kid's puberty when she got breasts and a few parents thought it wasn't appropriate for the class. Far as I could tell, there were no politics involved in that particular book's disapproval by some parents.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

My example is from Moreno Valley, California.

 

[Jdvn1]

Just for fun, why don't we list the states these schools are in?

It's a district-by-district thing.

Education is a power delegated to the states, but states tend to delegate the power to smaller school districts.

That's my way of saying, "No, that could easily get too political."

 

[TarionzCousin]

"Banned" Books Sell Well!

I worked in a bookstore for several years. Whenever some group would start advocating for removing a book from the shelves, a dozen people would come in and buy it.

Trying to get a book banned is the second best way to get that book to sell--Oprah's recommendation is number one.