Burn baby burn

matrim

I came across this and thought some of you might enjoy looking over it

http://blogs.nerve.com/scanner/2010/04/15/top-10-books-prudes-dont-want-us-to-read/

It a list from the ALA (American Library Assosication) of the top 10 most attacked, banned, burned, castrated, censored and altogether buried books of the past year.

Eliot Rosewater

That's very interesting! I haven't read Twilight so I can't comment on the accuracy or otherwise of it being "sexually explicit." I wouldn't be surprised if some zealous librarians were trying to bar children from reading it.


I've read 3 of the books on that list. It's surprising to see To Kill A Mockingbird there, given that it's such an indictment of racism itself. Perhaps people are too afraid to leave such a book open to interpretation.

Denerick

Oh yeah, I could see how an idiot could be offended by the racism in To Kill A Mockingbird

Sometimes I think retards who hold these kinds of opinions should be held in a giant camp somewhere, deprived of their liberty and forced to read numerous books in their holding cells until they realise they are vacuous morons ruining life for everyone else.

Bet you never thought the anti-censorship guys could be fascists too

Eliot Rosewater

There was an interesting discussion on the BookMooch mailing list about this.


Basically, what usually happens is that concerned parents ask the librarian that a particular book be removed from the shelves because they feel it isn't right for their child.

The main opposition to this was that parents should be the ones controlling their child's reading, not the library, especially because the removing of a book on the basis of only a handful of complaints has a negative impact on all. I'm especially thinking of Harper Lee's book; I would imagine that I would want my child to read it.

This led onto a discussion as to how far libraries should go in helping parents in managing their children's reading. One person commented that their library refused to show them what books their child had taken out. In that particular case the Mother in question knew there were explicit movies involved. Should teenage children have full right of privacy from their parents?

Some people might think, no, they're still underage. But consider this scenario: a teenage boy is concerned about his sexuality and decides to take out a "Am I Gay?" self-help book. Is it fair that the parents should know about this before he is emotionally ready to tell them?