Censorship

Today as I checked Yahoo the headline was about banned books - or more specifically books that had been challenged the most to be available in school libraries and which of those books (there was a list of 100) are the most searched on the web.

Here is the link I was looking at - but I have listed the books below that were the most searched on the requested books to be banned list.

"Harry Potter" (Series) (J.K. Rowling)
"To Kill a Mockingbird" (Harper Lee)
"The Color Purple" (Alice Walker)
"The Outsiders" (S.E. Hinton)
"Lord of the Flies" (William Golding)
"Of Mice and Men" (John Steinbeck)
"Goosebumps" (Series) (R.L. Stine)
"How to Eat Fried Worms" (Thomas Rockwell)
"The Catcher in the Rye" (J.D. Salinger)
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (Mark Twain)
"The Giver" (Lois Lowry)
"Brave New World" (Aldous Huxley)
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (Mark Twain)
"Captain Underpants" (Dav Pilkey)
"The Anarchist Cookbook" (William Powell)
"Carrie" (Stephen King)
"Flowers for Algernon" (Daniel Keyes)
"The Dead Zone" (Stephen King)
"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (Maya Angelou)
"Go Ask Alice" (anonymous)
"American Psycho" (Bret Easton Ellis)
"The Chocolate War" (Robert Cormier)
"James and the Giant Peach" (Roald Dahl)
"The Pigman" (Paul Zindel)
"A Wrinkle in Time" (Madeleine L'Engle)

Some of these selections make absolutely no sense to me. I am happy to say that I have read 9 of these (well technically 14 if you count every Harry Potter book, 1-6 so far)- although that is by far probably not enough. There are some I would never read - the Stephen King and American Psycho hold no interest to me, but I don't think they should be banned.

A couple of funny observations on the list. I read A Wrinkle in Time in 5th grade. This was in our school ciriculum - I guess I was bombarded with something I shouldn't have been. Also, a family member makes the list, S.E. Henton is a distant cousin of mine.

Some of these books are being protested because they use racial slurs. So what? That was the truth, these things were said during these periods that the books were being written about. By reading this you are not agreeing to what is being written about. By that logic reading a book about the holocost or other atrocity would say you accept that too. To not read and challenge why this was so or what in that era led these injustices to be viewed with caviler attitudes makes you less of a person in my opinion.

Of course I will defend Harry Potter until the day I die as being a wonderful book series (check out my links). It has characters that have been developed with complexities and story lines that are as old as time - good vs. evil. The books have no profanity, no sexuality, but are wonderful stories that can entertain a simple mind like mine. It also points out that good doesn't always win without a loss and that evilness can be in degrees and that sometimes being silent is actually and acquiesence to evil.

But the issue is they are wizards. So what? Have you watched the Wizard of Oz? Do you think the stories of King Arthur should be taught? (there was a wizard in that too). Or what about Lord of the Rings - I think there are some wizards in that as well?

I don't know a single person that if they could wave a wand and have the dinner pots clean themselves wouldn't do it.

Harry Potter is a story for entertainment, an outlet for kids to relish in the joy of reading. It is not a handbook to create an army of occultists.

Now I have to back to my self-cleaning pots and make sure my house elf is going to be preparing dinner....