Cathy C. Hall Writes

Another year, another Banned Books Week, and once again, I’m shocked when I peruse the titles that have been banned and/or challenged. Take a look at this list, from the American Library Association’s website. Bet you’ve read many of these books, somewhere along the road to higher knowledge. Provocative prose is guaranteed to make you think. Maybe that’s why it scares some folks.

I have to admit that the idea of banning books makes me smile. I can’t help thinking about my mom and one of her favorites sayings, “Don’t put peas up your nose.” Because of course, if you tell a little kid not to put peas up his nose (or her nose-this blog believes in equal peas for all), what’s the first thing that the kid is going to do?

Yeah, that’s right. It’s off to the doctor’s office to extract peas from a nose. So, I kinda think the best way to get kids to read the best books is to tell them that the books have been BANNED.

Oh, my gosh. Those kids will be stampeding the libraries to get to those banned books. I’d love to see kids all over America reading this list of books.

But honestly, I’m happy to see kids, teens, adults, seniors, even alien life forms, reading any book. So, read a book, any book, and celebrate your freedom.

In general principle, I don’t like the idea of banning books. I like the idea of letting people have the freedom to read whatever they want to read.

On the other hand, I don’t think kindergartners should have Lolita read to them. Not necessarily because of the content. I’m going out on a limb here to say that I don’t think there’s a five-year-old who’s going to get the gist of Lolita. So why bore the poor kids?

And here’s another thing. When I see books on one of those banned lists, it just makes me want to go out and read the book. So if you tell teenagers not to read something like The Earth, my Butt and Other Big Round Things (which was one of the 10 most challenged books in 2009), then get out of the way! ‘Cause those 15-year-olds are going to storm bookstores and libraries for that title.

I’m just saying. But you know who says it better? The American Library Association. You might want to see why it’s so important to celebrate the freedom to read during Banned Books Week.

And you can go over to the Banned Books site to find the other books on that Top Ten Challenged list, plus other interesting tidbits. Then go to your favorite bookstore or library and read a banned book.

I’m checking out The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things. Um, not my personal butt. I mean the book. Because how can you not want to read a fun book like that?