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Banning books a bad idea
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Published: November 17, 2008
Last week my eighth-grade son came home having heard he'd not be able to read his assigned novel "The Secret Life of Bees" because of a parent complaint. Over the summer, I'd received an e-mail excusing him and giving him permission to read something other than "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian."
Honestly. Read it. Inappropriate? It was a great book with important lessons relating to prejudice, acceptance and self-esteem. Do parents really think that their 13-year-old and older boys and girls don't know what a "boner" is? That reading a profane word will make them use it? Do they think that if they remove all material related to things that parents are uncomfortable talking about that it will instill trust in their kids that their parents can be talked with?
I read what my son reads and he knows he can ask me questions. Trust is a two-way street, and teaching your children what is and is not appropriate behavior is a parent's job.
Restricting reading material for language and content is censorship. It shows a desire to insulate our children from reality, rather than prepare them for it. Do these parents think Maya Angelou's book is promoting molestation? There is a huge difference in what would truly be called pornography. This is right up there with folks accusing Barack Obama of supporting sex education for kindergartners when, in fact, the context was molestation prevention.
Every Election Day, I wear a sweatshirt my mother bought me. It says "Celebrate Freedom – read a banned book" and continues with a list including: "1984" by George Orwell, "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway, "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger, "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker, "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell, "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Anne Frank, "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "To Kill a Mocking-bird" by Harper Lee, "The Canter-bury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer, and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou.
Pine Lake is a college preparatory school. If these parents have such a concern for sheltering their children from reality and literature, they might consider what it is their kids will be prepared for.
Certainly, it won't be college.
On the other hand, I'm in a dilemma about what to do if the school does start pulling these important works from the curriculum, enforcing the morality of a few on my own children. Pull them from the school? I don't know if I could find a better school for them and I don't feel I am qualified to home school. I suppose I'd better round out my own collection of banned books and add it to their lessons at home. I've been taking that responsibility for years in some ways. My eldest son has had a high school/college reading level since fifth or sixth grade. I have kept him from reading some things for mature content (never anything from school), and mention to him what it was and to come to me with questions when I give the book to him later. He does. Amazing, huh?
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