thinking of banned books

  

 Danville Public Library Banned Books Week [not my foto]

Couple of months back banned books made the national headlines on account of Republicans had to show who they were. So yeah, i've been thinking of banned books. As a teenager i read several of the books that are still being banned. I went to a Catholic High School, many of these books were assigned reading. There was no objection, save those by students who disliked certain books because of personal preference. I read, "The Lord of the Flies", i did not like it, had no thought of it should not be read by others. 

Looking over frequently banned books, those i read as a teenager: outside of assigned reading: "All Quiet on the Western Front", "Animal Farm"; and assigned: “Of Mice and Men”, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, "The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn", "The Canterbury Tales", "A Farewell To Arms". A few others i read in 7th and 8th grades. Books assigned to other students in the same school: “Slaughterhouse-Five”, "Brave New World", "The Catcher in the Rye". In a public grade school, i vaguely remember a teacher reading "Charlotte's Web" to the class. She liked that Charlotte could write, and spell. We had spelling as a grade.

Several decades later, other books that did not exist then by another generation of writers that have been frequently banned: "The Handmaid's Tale", “Beloved”, "The Color Purple".  Most of these books are banned to have ideas silenced:  anti-militarism, “anti-business attitude”, “troubling ideas about race relations”, exposing hypocrisy ["Elmer Gantry", Sinclair Lewis has fallen out of favor by teachers, he had other great novels].

I was introduced to "The Story of Ferdinand" by Captain Kangaroo. The book came out in 1936, and was promptly banned by the fascist states. Other children books i read that were banned: "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl", "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", "Black Beauty" [the title was offensive].