Monday, March 03, 2003
Tonight at Third Place Books I helped a customer who teaches at a local high school. She was trying to pick classic books for her class, but needed texts that wouldn't have any controversial material. Apparently she and other teachers have had problems with parents complaining about the appropriateness of books selected. She herself didn't have a problem teaching books with controversial material, she just didn't want to lose her job over it.
We went through most of our bestselling classics...1984, Brave New World, Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream...all because they have questionable references...authority, birth control, the Danish, and faeries (respectively)...okay, maybe they aren't anti-Danish. But OH MY GAWD! how hard it must be to teach in this school. These are all the books I first read in high school, the ones that got me really excited about the power of books in our culture. I first read parts of 1984 in eighth grade....ARGH!!!
She politely turned away from Ender's Game because it had the word "butt" mentioned. Ender's Game is written by a devoutly Mormon man who frequently gets criticized for being too religious in his writing.
This, tonight, is what banned books feel like.
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We went through most of our bestselling classics...1984, Brave New World, Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream...all because they have questionable references...authority, birth control, the Danish, and faeries (respectively)...okay, maybe they aren't anti-Danish. But OH MY GAWD! how hard it must be to teach in this school. These are all the books I first read in high school, the ones that got me really excited about the power of books in our culture. I first read parts of 1984 in eighth grade....ARGH!!!
She politely turned away from Ender's Game because it had the word "butt" mentioned. Ender's Game is written by a devoutly Mormon man who frequently gets criticized for being too religious in his writing.
This, tonight, is what banned books feel like.
