About Thoughts of a TechnoGeek: This is where I'll post my thoughts, interesting articles, or anything else I want to. If you don't like it, don't read it. David L Brenner my email Subscribe Links
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Sat, 28 Aug 2004
It's that time of the year again, banned books week is coming. The ALA has posted the list of 100 most frequently challenged books here. I always find it interesting to see what people are banning. It always seems to be childrens and young adults books primarily. There are obviously exceptions. Some of the books are no surprise. You have the old stand-bys of Catcher in the Rye and Huck Finn. Then there are the newer books like the Harry Potter series. There are others that I kind of scratch my head at: Judy Bloom and Stephen King don't seem all that out there, at least the books that are on the list. What I find amusing about the whole thing is this makes me want to go out and read them. I've read a number of the books on the list and I have enjoyed them emensely. There are some of them that I wouldn't want young children to read, like Madonna's book Sex, but I don't think it should be banned. I'm going to sterotype here, but I'm guessing the majority of the people banning these books are very conservative, religious people. They problably encourage people to read the bible. The funny part is there is a lot more violence and disobedience in there than there is in a lot of these books, but you don't see people trying to ban it. Banning books only works for a short period of time. It is counter productive because by getting behind banning the books, you are limiting the spread of knowledge, and ultimately weakening your position in the world. By exposing people to alternative ideas, you can educate them about the pros and cons of different things. Just because you can't read about a subject doesn't mean that it no longer exists, it just means that you are ignorant about it. Our forefathers put the First Ammendment in place for a reason. They recognized that education and religious freedom were vitally important to a society. I'm glad that this is brought to the forefront every year so people realize that this still happens, even here in America. |