http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.htm
The American Library Association site topic is Banned Books. I spent time going over the list of the top 100 most banned books and was amazed that some of the classics I have read are on the list. It's hard for me to understand why anyone would want to ban To Kill A Mockingbird or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer just to name 3 of the 100.
If anyone else wants to check this out and tell me what you think about some of the choices, I'm interested to hear what you have to say. I have my theory about the 3 books listed above. I think it is because they contain the "N" word which is unspeakable in our culture today (as it should be). When I read those books I knew it was wrong to say that word or to call someone that name. Reading it in the context of those books didn't change my attitude about it at all. I could see that in the time and setting of these three books, that word was used in those cultures, as wrong as it was, and it illustrated the mentality of those saying it. What do you think? Should these books be banned?
5 comments:
No, I don't think they should be banned. They are classics....if they contain inappropiate words, then there should be an explanation as to why we don't used those words anymore. Good grief...they say worse things on TV these days. Linda in WA
Now Im curious what word was in the books that caused them to be banned ...oh stop I think I know ,Durr I am abit slow this morning ,going to make a coffee to wake me up lol ,.,.,.,Jan xx
My partner is black and he has no problem with it. In fact he said he hates being referred to as a negro and much prefers 'nigger'!! Funny bloke! Jeannette xx
I tried to open the link up and read the list of other banned books but kept getting a time out error, and it never brought up the site. I was just curious about what other books were on it. There are always going to be things we don't want our children exposed to, but we can't keep them from EVERYTHING, and as a parent we have a responiblitly to counsel our children and explain and teach them about wrong things that are in books, movies or songs and try to monitor and keep them in age appropriate material. Some things are down right FILTH and I try to keep my daught from exposure as much as possible, while at the same time trying to explain why she needs to avoid it... by explaing how degrading or hurtful, or inappropriate it is. I agree with you and others about explaining to children why words were used in a certain context for that time period or culture.
yeah those books are such classics too
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