Viva Banned Book Week
By Nicole Belle Sunday Sep 28, 2008 10:00pm(Guest blogged by NonnyMouse)
It probably comes as no surprise to regular C&L readers to learn that I grew up in a liberal-minded household; although at the time, being a kid, I didn't especially realize just how liberal such attitudes were. Our house was filled with books, magazines and newspapers, everything from a revered set of encyclopedias (the Google of the 1960's) to stacks of ratty romance paperbacks. We had at least forty years worth of National Geographic magazines, from which I gleaned juicy facts for hundreds of school reports. I learned to read from Humpty-Dumpty magazines at the age of three and had read Ivanhoe by the time I was seven, although I have to admit I didn't understand much of it at the time.
It didn't matter. What mattered was that nothing... nothing... was off-limits in our house when it came to the written word. I read Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde and the complete works of Jonathan Swift, the back of cereal boxes, A Little Princess and Mein Kampf and Uncle Tom's Cabin and Black Beauty, Dr. Seuss and Archie comics, a huge box of pulp science-fiction novels from a garage sale, Jehovah's Witness Biblical tracts that got shoved in the letterbox, the perpetual Cherry Ames, Army Nurse novels my grandmother inevitably sent us every Christmas, every book ever written by Philip Wylie, several year's worth of a wonderful science magazine for teens to which my Aunt Ruth gave me a subscription (‘Build a Working Computer from Empty Matchboxes!), until the magazine went bust and folded. The written word, from high-brow to no-brow, was sacrosanct.
That liberal attitude toward the freedom of the written word was severely tested when at twelve I found a rather dog-eared paperback tucked behind some cans of paint in the garage - my father did a rather comical (and horrified) double-take when he found me lying on the sofa, legs dangling over one side, and puzzling over the nuances of what was an out-and-out hardcore pornographic novel. He nervously asked if I had any questions about what I was reading. ‘Do people really do this?' Um, sometimes. ‘Yuuuck! But you and Mom, you don't...?' Um, sometimes. ‘Double yuuuuuck!' Which probably did more to ease my dad's mind about my prepubescent proclivities than any euphemistic harangue on sex could ever have achieved. (My vast childhood reading habits also endowed me with this nifty erudite and comprehensive vocabulary, which comes in pretty handy now that I've grown up to be a published novelist).
So the idea that books, any book, should be banned - for any reason - is a complete anathema. Fahrenheit 451 is fiction. Censorship, unfortunately, is not.
That there is actually a week reserved for the championing of banned books, in America of all places, both saddens and heartens me. Saddens me because of the necessity, heartens me because it fights back against narrow-minded intolerance. This, then, the last week of September, from September 27th to October 4th, is Banned Books Week, a time when libraries and bookstores in every state put up displays of books to highlight the problem of censorship and celebrate our nation's right to the freedom to read whatever we damned well please. Since Banned Book Week was launched in 1982, more than a thousand books have been under pressure by those who would suppress the works of my fellow novelists and writers, because of sexual content, or slang, or violence, or profanity, or racial or religious objections, or political issues; from time-honoured classics to trashy airport novels. In the top ten books to be challenged last year alone, it is absolutely ludicrous that one of them should be The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Some of the books challenged bugger belief: An illustrated edition of Little Red Riding Hood was banned in two California school districts in 1989, because the book shows the heroine taking food and wine to her grandmother, the school board citing concerns about alcohol consumption by children. Roald Dahl's wonderful classic James and the Giant Peach was removed from a school in Florida because it contained the word ‘ass', and placed in restricted access in libraries in Virginia because the book encouraged children to ‘disobey their parents'. In Eureka, Illinois, Geoffrey Chaucer's 600-year-old masterpiece, Canterbury Tales, was dropped from an advanced literature course in a senior preparatory high school class for... get this... objectionable ‘sexual content.' How insane is that?
In Gainesville, Hall County, Georgia, the Chestatee Public Library board hadn't even taken a final vote on whether or not to remove Nancy Friday's Women on Top from the shelves when someone decided to take the matter into their own hands, borrowed it and ‘accidently' destroyed it. The board did, however, vote not to replace it. Me, I'm tempted to send them a replacement copy, gratis.
It's not just schools and libraries; bookstores are also deciding what you, the customer, should and should not be allowed to read. Tim C. Leedom's The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You To Read was banned from Barnes & Noble in San Diego in 1995 because it was ‘too controversial for the bookstore's conservative clientele.'
And now, in the age of the Internet, the problem of book censorship has become more complex; the US government is doing its best to impose restrictions on both reader and writer of any kind of written word, including these you are reading right now, on this blog. In Loudoun County, Virginia, libraries were required to use filter programs to access the Internet that blocked certain sites such as, well, Banned Books Online. Despite a lawsuit that struck down this policy, in 2000, Congress compelled libraries across the country to filter all Internet connections or lose public assistance. Three years later, the US Supreme court upheld that decision, leaving our public libraries to choose between censorship and funding.
This is not just a liberal versus conservative issue, or religion versus science, or morality versus depravity, or even quality versus trash. There is a fine line between suppressing an author's work and suppressing the author. In a free and democratic society, everyone - absolutely everyone - should have the Constitutionally guaranteed right to think for themselves rather than have someone else dictate what they are allowed to read. Oh wait, we do. It's called the First Amendment.
So please, during Banned Book Week, support your local writers, dead or alive. I'd love to say go buy my books, God knows I could use the sales. But my work hasn't been banned. Yet. However, if we all do not actively defend the rights of others in my profession who have found themselves opposed by those who would censor our right to read, I could very well find myself joining the list of such esteemed writers as George Orwell, Maya Angelou, Judy Blume, William Faulkner, Alex Haley, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Aldous Huxley, Mike Royko, Voltaire, Joseph Heller, J. D. Sallinger, Anne Rice, Jean Auel, Anthony Burgess, Alice Walker, the Grimms Brothers, Arthur Miller, Anne Frank, Stephen King, John Steinbeck, Margaret Atwood, Isabelle Allende, Allen Ginsberg, Sir Thomas Malory, C. S. Lewis, Laura Ingalls Wilder, William Golding, E. M. Forster, Philip Pullman, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., William Shakespeare...
...and the American Heritage Dictionary.
I kid you not.
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Respectfully, where's Naked Lunch in that collage? Damn!
Good for you Nicole. I come from a household that doesn't even like touching book. lol. I had some great influences though, who instilled in me a great need to read, e.xplore and learn. Books have taken me wonderful places in times of gloom and desperation. Books have given me knowledge and prepared me much better than life. I'm 22 years old but according to family and friends I am one of the wisest people they know, books and a constant urge to gain knowledge has made me what I am today.
Woot! Thanks for helping to spread the word.
Reading makes you smart - that's why it is discouraged by the powers that be.
They'd rather have you be S-M-R-T than smart...
When the heck is C&L going to post the INSANELY HORRIBLE Couric interview with McCain and Palin?!!
I'm dying to bash this in a thread!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/29/eveningnews/main4487826.shtml
The book burning in my town was cancelled because nobody had any.
In honor of Sarah Palin I'm going to buy each one of those books.. and burn them.
Geez, a lot of those books were in our bookshelves growing up. I guess we're dirty commies, or somethin'??? (My Dad is a very conservative lawyer.)
NO TO CENSORSHIP in any form, ever. People don't have to read any books they find distasteful, but DON'T DECIDE FOR ME.
klyde @ 7:
Don't burn them!!!!!!!! Sneak them back onto library shelves.
Palin: I’m Qualfied to Burn Books Cause I Border a ‘Borders’
Your childhood experience with books, magazines and anything to do with learning sounds EXACTLY like mine. Was either of your parents a teacher?
As a book lover and avid reader, I hate censorship.
When people like Sarah Palin want to burn books, it almost certainly shows their ignorance and lack of education. They can't even think for themselves. They don't even have the intellectual depth or curiosity to wonder about conditions affecting the world from different theoretical standpoints.
Well-read and well-heeled people don't burn books. Not a one.
Thank you Nicole. I will miss Banned Book Week in our little town here in Maine. The big box store, Borders moved in and our small owner-run bookstore was forced to close. Every year they had a display in their window of books that had been banned at one time or another. I always stood in front of that window and thought of the authors and how proud they must be to have hit upon the truth so eloquently that someone, somewhere was afraid that we would read their words and be enlightened.
Our family, coming out of the Great Depression would go without just to be able to read the daily paper and buy books. I have a house full and can buy what I want now, but I will buy them from the little guys in another town rather than go into the Borders store.
Um, yaknowwhat? If the younger ones among us could have a few of these mags, they would be able to y'know, do science!
My question is who has WHAT problem with Shel Silverstien?!
BTW, why the HELL would anything by Shel Silverstein be banned??!! That makes no friggin' sense.
I'm always amazed at the concept of banning a book. There is no fruit sweeter than that which is forbidden. As soon as a teenager hears a book if off-limits what is the first reaction most of the have? Why of course, to get a copy and read it.
You got to love it when reactionary ideas backfire.
Jinx Joke
Owe me a Coke! :)
Your Dad is cool!.....I just pictured if had caught my daughter reading a porn book.....my first impulse would to take it away from her.....but....thinking back....my final thought would have been....("...don't let your mother catch you reading that...") who would have had pooped little bullets. I was free to read anything I wanted growing up,but my brothers and I kept the porn hidden to keep the frown off my moms face...lol.
Bitter Bud Hussein @ 16:
That crack-head?!?
http://www.yahooka.com/forum/writers-joint/35414-shel-silverstein-poem.html
(Just kidding - loved the guy since HS)
wow! I read Ivanhoe when I was 8, and Hamlet when I was 7, and that I was the odd child!
It's good to know that I have such good company...
BTW: my folks wanted to censor my reading, but just couldn't censor things like Shakespeare... Much to the Palin's chagrin, I think there is more rape, sex and violence in the Bible... at least I thought so when I read it at the age of 8...
Bitter Bud Hussein @ 18:
I KNOW! Shel Silverstien was one of the greats, and I can't see how any of his work could be viewed a controversial, let alone ban-worthy.
And you can have my Coke when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Happy to say, all these books are alive and well at our public school! Just got done reading Farenheit 451 in our Sci Fi/Fantasy class, and the lively discussions keep my hopes and dreams alive for our future. The kids LOVED it, and of course, the discussion turned to "Banned Book Week".
Had a display out for open house last week, and parents were astounded by some of the lit. displayed. To think that there have been attempts against Capt. Underpants is unbelievable! lol
Love what Clare Booth Luce had to say on the subject: "Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there."
It took me many years into my adulthood to get my hands on the titles pictured on your graphic. The only books I remember at home as a child: a large family bible that had all of Jesus' quotations in RED INK, a daily devotions booklet that was always on the dinner table, Luther's Small Catechism, a favorite book of my Dad's that had graphic artist's renderings of different groups of people and animals DROWNING during the great flood, and an ANCIENT and very dog-eared complete set of WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA.
Of course, I did all my reading as a child in the World Book.
Saad @ 2:
Jo @ 13:
Actually, I'm proud to say that while my family has overflowing bookshelves (a trait I've passed on to my kids) and fostered a love of reading, THIS POST WAS WRITTEN BY MY FRIEND, NONNY MOUSE.
David Wolf @ 20:
In my experience, Bible-thumpers these days are prone to forgetting that people in the OT were prone to violence, debauchery, and other naughty activities almost as much as Greek gods and heroes (admittedly not surprising seeing as both Judaism and Greek mythology have similar roots/ influenced each others' development somewhat). Moreover, one gets the impression that most of them never actually take the time to read those parts, focusing instead on the fuzzy persona of Jesus and anything that could somehow be used to justify oppression of gays, opposing abortion rights, and/or teaching creationism.
SwingingJohnson @ 5:
We have covered it. Do a site search for Palin.
Today, i went to a senior center to visit my Auntie Ruth (who's bright and alive at 92).
They had a Wii system set up downstairs for a group of seniors to play virtual bowling.
Anyway the women were actually moving and releasing a virtual ball clapping and cheering (for real)! I t stunned me. The virtual environment can work. Well.
THANK YOU NONNY MOUSE!!!
I come from a family where neighbors used to make fun of us kids - we could all be just holed up in the house and read, read, read. For me (and I'm sure the others as well), as the youngest, it was the ultimate and best escape of my reality: a violent alcoholic father and a mean alcoholic mother.
My escape was in books. I like the smell of books - whenever I get a present in form of a book, the first thing I do is smell it. The print, the ink, I love it all!!
I read some books that I really didn't like, that even offended me. But, booklover that I am, I was not able to put them down (meaning, not finish reading them) either. In my view, should they be banned? Absolutely not!!!!
Right now, my lover and I have a small house together. I have to figure out how to get rid of some books, since they're just piling up around me. I'll have to call the 'Friends of the Oakland Library' to take them off my hand for a tax deduction (i got laid off, and I'll need any deduction I can get!)
Now, my problem is......which ones to get rid off????? After smelling each and every one of them, even those I hated......it's still hard to get rid of any of them!!
BAN any of them?????? To do that, I'd have to shrink my mind to just about nothing.
And that's how I view those who want to ban books - their minds are just about non-existant.
Sad, really.
Nicole Belle @ 26:
Oops, my bad. Forgot about the new one. It'll go up tomorrow.
I had the same kind of childhood, I was encouraged to read anything I could get my hands on.
At 7 years old I was going up to the mountains with my folks and we stopped at a kind of mini-mart place and I saw this great magazine cover making fun of Saturday Night Fever...
it was Mad Magazine and I got my mom to buy it for me. She saw that I read it cover to cover, the letters, the little cartoons on the borders, and every section of the magazine, every word! so she bought me a subscription to it.
I learned later that kids would get punished for reading Mad and I just couldn't get my head around that. My mom didn't care what I read, as long as I was reading.
Amen to that. Reading whatever you damn well please and frequently is vital to growing up a well reasoned individual IMO. That censorship, thought control, and hatred of knowledge of all kinds is so core to the right wing's belief system says all you really need to know about them.
klyde @ 7:
Yeah, yeah, then I'm going to burn my nuts to spite my crotch!
My parents used to buy me a lot of Mad magazines too, Dahgro, as well as comic books. From there I eventually branched out into novels and non-fiction. I've always wondered about the disdain some people have for comics and their ilk. Far from damaging, they probably do more to encourage wider reading than any other form of mass entertaiment.
I can't help but cry at all the books my son just lost to the recent flooding in Bridge City, TX due to Hurricane Ike. These were books he had collected since he was in junior high... following in our footsteps of reading, he and his brother were allowed 1 book purchase every 2 weeks, if they completely read the book. We bought paperbacks for them at first, but they decided they wanted the big hard backs. They both enjoyed a variety of topics, but leaned toward the "fantasy fiction" (Brooks, Feist, etc) and have/had managed quite a collection over the past 10+ years. To see those books in such a destroyed state was beyond heartbreaking... I can NEVER understand anyone simply burning a book due to it's topic or content.
Bitter Bud Hussein @ 16:
Shel did cartoons for Playboy before writing kids books!
The Great Smoke Off
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVfE_-ZJAxc
This is how I feel about banning books- Tom Lehrer - Smut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klME1mtuTOY
lafin gas @ 36:
That's funny! I have to say, though, SS has the most alarming full jacket author pic on the back of The Giving Tree. Scared the beejeebers outta me!
I grew up in a GOP echo chamber and what saved me was becoming a book worm and then developing into an English major. You know, cultivating ideas and stuff like dat.
I think I will donate some banned books to my library and dedicate them to Sarah Palin.
It's not the book that is questionable. It is the person's mind who wants to ban the book.
txlvn @ 35:
Well, you know what, the best thing you can do, besides giving them a safe place to live, is to absolutely encourage and help them to get the books back.
I wish you all the luck - I don't know what it's like to lose everything like that!!
Speaking of the Great Smoke Off, I have put together some Medical Marijuana Reviews for So Cal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_Dp7E1XmfE
My first experience w/ Catholic school was much like that of Scout Finch.
Sister Mary Himmler called my father to complain that he had taught me to read the wrong way. We had to stop.
We, too, reached a compromise.
Furthermore, to those who wish to ban this or that version of the bible: Only if we can ban them all.
Bitter Bud Hussein @ 16:
Source: http://solonor.com/bannedbooks/archives/001771.html?loc=interstitialskip
A Light In The Attic
AUTHOR: Shel Silverstein
ISBN: 0060256737
Plot Summary: A collection of humorous poems and drawings for kids.
Complaints: Violence, unsuited to age
Challenged at the Fruitland Park Elementary School library in Lake County, Fla. (1993) because the book "promotes disrespect, horror, and violence." According to the publisher, it's been challenged because it "encourages children to break dishes so they won't have to dry them."
The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (?) is on the list.
Looks like it ran afoul of the PC police. Sheesh.
"In Eureka, Illinois, Geoffrey Chaucer’s 600-year-old masterpiece, Canterbury Tales, was dropped from an advanced literature course in a senior preparatory high school class for… get this… objectionable ‘sexual content.’ How insane is that?"
That's completely insane!!! MFG!!! It sounds more like they turned it into an advanced ignorance course then a literature course! F***ing criminal is what this shit is!
Pechorin @ 6:
Books will be the new fuel source to replace home heating oil this Winter.
Nicole Belle @ 30:
It sure is. So much to rip apart! I can hardly wait 'till morning.
McCain actually says, while defending Palin's lack of experience, Well Clinton was gov of a small state and Reagan was a cowboy". Nevermind he was gov of Ca for 8 years of a state with a population and economy larger than most countries.
I couldn't believe my ears. And he never stops twittleing his thumbs for the entire interview.
I had a similar background.
I can not for the life of me understand why Laura Ingalls Wilder was on the banned list.I LOVED her as a kid, and my friends and I used to make up "Laura" stories as we played. I always got to be Laura because I ...well I kind of looked like Melissa Gilbert..but mostly I was the neighborhood director of play. WHY? Children who read are children who have the ability to imagine and create stories.
Also, my one book banning story. My mother signed a waiver with the local public library when I was 9 years old, that said I was allowed to check out adult books. She "caught" me reading one of her books by Irving Wallace and his children called, "Nymphos and other maniacs" It was a history book about women who were ahead of their time, like Pauline Bonaparte and Lady Caroline Lamb (and many more). She sat me down and asked me if I understood what a Nymphomaniac was, and what I thought about the book, and did I have a favorite story so far. Then she marched me to the public library and signed the waiver.
On paper, I was allowed to read any book that I wanted, and there my home phone was listed on my card, just in case the librarian on duty had any questions for my mom about my choice of material. One day there was an issue. One of the librarians wouldn't allow me, at the age of 13, to check out a copy of the Judy Blume book "Forever" It was about a teenage romance that goes sour.(actually, I have to say, I don't remember much about it.) It was listed as a Juvenile Novel.
The librarian called my mother and told her that she would not allow me to check out this book because it was inappropriate for a girl my age, and if my mother wouldn't say no, she felt it her duty to put her foot down and prohibit me from reading this book. (I think there must have been sex and maybe pregnancy in it.)
As I was walking home, empty handed, my mother met me on the street about 3 blocks from the library. We lived 8 blocks from the library. She grabbed my hand and dragged me back to the library, telling me the whole way that I had the right to read whatever I wanted and should never let anyone tell me anything else.
When she got there, she told the librarian that she had signed the waiver for me to read at an adult level, and that if I didn't get the book check out ON MY CARD, mother would sue HER personally, for a violation of my constitutional rights. She raised quite a lot of hell, in a lowered voice, and in the end, I took the book home with me, and the librarian was transferred to another library. Fortunately, most librarians are not like this one woman was. I often wondered what drove this one to work in a library at all.
Jobless in California @ 29:
Totally sad. Hello from a fellow Oaklander! Google Sara & Swingtime if you want to meet...
Right on, wholeheartedly.
But to play devil's advocate a bit here, it's easy and it feels good to champion Fahrenheit 451, To Kill A Mockingbird, Vonnegut and Ferlinghetti. It's quite something else to defend the books and ideas that are dangerous and loathesome.
Yes, each of those cited above were censored, but today they're part of the canon among educated people. Defending Mark Twain is easy. Where are the objections to campus speech codes, or other restrictions placed on expression to "protect" people?
Defense of free speech only really counts when one defends speech with which one disagrees.
-Chris
From Huffington Post--
Palin supposedly couldn't name any other Supreme Court decision except Roe v. Wade to Couric:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/29/latest-palin-gaffe-cant-n_n_130...
ontheleftcoast @ 17:
Only for people with inquiring minds, most people go with the herd, if something is banned or considered not nice, they avoid it.
Consensual behavior is a very strong force for weak minded people, knowledge is power, so books are the enemy of the clergy with sheltered flocks.
Add Freedom Writers Diary to that list. It's already been drawing some controversy in schools.
Hall Monitor
DetentionSlip.org
SwingingJohnson @ 48:
It was like watching a 'Daddy Daughter' duet. It couldnt be anymore creepy if she sat on his lap while he wore a red/white suit.
I remember reading the book, "Down These Mean Streets" by Piri Thomas in high school over thirty years ago. He later wrote a sequel but I don't remember the name. Much later, I learned the book was banned from a school library in another part of the country. The books are about a young man from Spanish Harlem, who eventually goes to prison for armed robbery. However, he finally turns his life around, and eventually the local police would call him whenever a teenager showed signs of going down the same destructive road that he did. Later on, he must deal with bigotry in the suburbs because of his dark skin - he and his wife wanted to live there. In the first book at least, there were some sexual situations and some violence; however, the positive message at the end of the book, after his release from prison, is both wonderful and hopeful. The second book continues his story. If both books are still in print, they are certainly worth reading.
CowBoy Bob in Austin. @ 23:
I had the same experience with my family (we did devotionals during breakfast or dinner); however, Dobson was forced down my throat from a young age in book and radio form. After reading so many "Christian" novels, I hated reading. Then, I met Jane Austen and Kurt Vonnegut. There are no words to express how much I love those two writers.
Out of curiosity, was any Ayn Rand novel ever band? Also, how could anyone hate on Shel Silverstien?
SwingingJohnson @ 48:
ferrofluid (Obama + Biden = 2008) @ 55:
Ha!
I got the impression of a Dad having to be in the principle's office with his High School daughter to discuss her failing grades.
RE: 48:
Holy f*cking crap!!
Reagan was a cowboy? Maybe he was out rounding up dino on the backlot at Paramount...
What a moron!
I have no doubt that you are a novelist, I'm married to one.
It is impossible for her to go from A to B, without bringing in back-story from S K G K M D & O.
I worry that all novelist might have trouble yelling for help, without some back-story.
GK
I'm surprised they don't want to ban every book by Dr. David Ray Griffin. They should because it will be there downfall.
I'd like to propose banning a library. The George Bush library.
Make it into a homeless shelter instead.
It's not like his administration had anything to do with books anyway.
OK I'll let him keep a copy of Camus' "The Stranger".
He may finally grasp its meaning when his presidency is over.
fastfeat @ 52:
I also noticed someone wrote in the comments section of that article that they (the blogger) had gotten a call, and that Palin would be dumped in the AM, and Romney would be the VP replacement.
DUH... I'm speechless..... how in the world do they spin THAT if it's true?
J. K. Rowling (the author of Harry Potter) considers it an honor to have been banned.
From her website, a note commemorating Banned Books Week dated 9/29/06: "Once again, the Harry Potter books feature on this year's list of most-banned books. As this puts me in the company of Harper Lee, Mark Twain, J. D. Salinger, William Golding, John Steinbeck, and other writers I revere, I have always taken my annual inclusion on the list as a great honour. 'Every banned book enlightens the world."--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Here's an interesting site:
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression: http://www.abffe.com/
txlvn @ 64:
THIS is what Romney is doing right now:
http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/romney_depressed_redo.jpg
beckyboo @ 49:
Hurray for your mother! :-)
As A child I was always puzzled by the amazement visitors displayed at the basement rec room bookshelves that lined the room and I wondered where they hid theirs cause I seldom saw any when visiting.It was kind of ironic because my dad was strictly blue collar and we lived in a neighborhood liberally infested with lawyers ,doctors and the odd dentist. Couldn't help but notice that line about being a published novelist Nicole. Maybe everyone else here knows that here but I didn't. So what did you write?
Nicole: Peter, I'm not the author of this piece. NonnyMouse graciously guest posted this and is indeed a published author. We highlighted her book Redemption here a few months ago.
txlvn @ 35:
Hey, txlvn,
My heart goes out to your son - I live in Silsbee, and I was fortunate to escape any damage. But take heart that while the books may be gone, your son's knowledge and desire to be enlightened may act as an inspiration to others in SE TX - where it's sorely needed.
SwingingJohnson @ 66:
You dirty rat!!!! Now I'll for sure have nightmares!!! What a SSSSAAAADDDD, and scarey pic of Romney!! [thanks for sharing :-) ]
Peter G @ 68:
I guess I shouldn't skip the headers when reading a new thread. My bad. But you could write one you know.
Matt in Texas @ 69:
Thanks Matt... glad you folks didn't get the bad stuff like Rita left you 3 years ago. I'm starting to really HATE hurricane season down here in SE Texas... hahahahha Can we please start having snow days???? hahahahha
Matt in Texas @ 69:
Same goes from me too. Sorry to hear that.
I just lost all my books and records (paper and vinyl) because I couldn't pay the storage--some 25+ years worth. Really sucks, and I just try not to think about it. FUCK THIS BUSH ECONOMY!
I want to see a list of books that are really banned. I mean, like illegal. I doubt anyone would stand up for them.
SwingingJohnson @ 66:
Easy, now, that's essentially my life. ( I vary the Jameson's whiskey with Irish mead.)
fastfeat@73
I'm so sorry to hear that. It's hard to imagine all the stuff we "save" being gone due to a fire, flood, or financial strains. It's like a part of us being ripped out. Regardless of the twist the repubs tried to put on his choice of words..... WE ARE BITTER!!! HELL, WE'RE PISSED!!!
well, time to put that pic of romney away and get to bed.... take care all, and have a good night.
Peter G @ 68:
My late mother-in-law had bookshelves like that in her basement rec room. When she and my father-in-law retired to Florida, she was forced to "downsize" and gave many, MANY of them away. My husband and I didn't have a lot of room at the time, but we took what we could manage, and she gave books to other family members, libraries, etc. I think she almost mourned for those books.
She told me once that when she and her husband were out house-hunting, she walked into a beautiful house that didn't "feel quite right". She couldn't put her finger on it until she finally realized...there were no books!
My husband and I have a lot of books, but we don't come anywhere near the library she had attained.
txlvn @ 72:
When I evacuated for Ike, I took my favorite book with me (Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon) just in case.
It was eerie how Ike took so similar a track to Rita.
I have a (totally unsubstantiated scientifically) theory: hurricanes hit areas in clusters over years. So, according to my theory, we're in the clear here along the TX/LA coast for quite some time.
Heck, I probably just jinxed us by saying that.
Maldoror @ 74:
I will.
Hey Nonnie, could you post a list of your books? I'd like to read them.
Considering your always eloquent posts, as well as your youthful exposure to porn, I bet they're pretty f*#king thought-provoking and insightful. I can't tell you how MUCH I want to READ YOUR BOOKS, you bad girl! :)
Seriously, can you provide a list?
Thanks.
Goodc @ 51:
I hope I made it clear that I do not advocate ANY book being banned, even those I loathe and despise. And there are plenty.
Because the argument that it's okay to champion 'right-thinking' books like Fahrenheit 451, To Kill A Mockingbird, or authors such as Vonnegut and Ferlinghetti, etc, but we shouldn't defend 'books and ideas that are dangerous and loathsome' buys right into the whole justification of why people want to suppress books in the first place. Who decides what is 'dangerous' or 'loathsome?' You? Me? Ms. Palin? The Harper Valley PTA?
The only way we have to arm our children against 'dangerous' or 'loathsome' ideas or books is to give them the freedom to examine them for themselves and to encourage the cognitive skills to make their own judgments. Cars can be dangerous - there are responsible drivers and drunk drivers and boy racers and gormless teenagers and 80-year-olds with bad eyesight and dodgy hearts behind the wheel. Crossing the street with all those people driving cars on it is dangerous. But keeping your children home to 'protect' them, or never teaching them about how to look both ways before you cross, that's even more dangerous.
I may not like your book. I might think your ideas are loathsome. I might equate your moral values with Hitler or Malkin or the KKK. But I will defend your right to publish your book, regardless. And I will teach MY children how to think for themselves; I will consider such books as inoculations against lies and hypocrisy and propoganda, and they will be able to spot such nastiness whenever it rears its ugly head for themselves.
Not forbid them to read it in the first place.
My name is Nonny Mouse, I wrote this post, and I approve of this message.
It seems when you really put loathsome ideas into a book, people learn to recognize and turn away from that loathsome idea.
This is why the lizard-brained conservatives see books as threatening. They rely on the gut reactions of disgust to their actions to buy them the time to get away with it all. Sort of Shock Doctrine in real time.
Like this weeks' Dramatic! Unforseen! Stock Market Crash! Or, How We Ripped Off Billions (Again) and Left Office Alive.
All books are equally valid representations of a person's opinion. And all people are entitled to an opinion. But NO ONE has the right to deny another their opinion or voice. If one loses, we all lose.
After reading though the petty reasons parents were objecting to various books, I'd like to ask these zealots. Could anything in a book be more objectionable then the violence and vulgarity on TV? What about the video games kids play? Are parents really so naive to think that of all the types of media kids are exposed to that reading about it in a book will rot a child's mind and decay his/her feeble moral character? I want my child to read and read anything and everything. I think Jefferson said something to the effect of a room without books is like a body without a soul.
Matt in Texas @ 83:
I will have a brand new novel coming out this coming February, this one under my real name, when at last all will be revealed. Hopefully, I'll be able to bat my eyes at the charming and refined gentleman who owns this esteemed blog (hey, Amato, you reading this?) to give me another little book launch post.
Meantime, please do feel free to rush out and buy a copy of my last novel, 'Redemption', by Lee Jackson (my other psuedonym). Tuition for doctoral degrees aren't cheap, y'know, I could use the royalties! Thanks, :)
geazer @ 46:
I think we have every Shel Silverstein book ever printed. I'll make sure I read that one to my kids (both in elementary school) this week. Facists in Florida be damned.
When I was about 14 years old, I was remarking to my father that the books in the "Young Adult" section of the library were mostly boring and stupid. He said he thought I'd really like Catcher in the Rye. I went to our local library and was told, after a stern look from the librarian, that I'd need a note from my parents in order to take it out. My parents were both shocked, but they provided the note. I think it was because the words "soul kiss" were spoken by Holden Caulfield.
I, of course, loved the book. It always seemed weird to me that we were reading Ivanhoe in English class in Jr. High. It had sentences like: "Come, doff your cap and sit with the promiscuous multitude, you epicurean voluptuary!" "Voluptuary"! Whoa, baby!
Wow, I think we grew up in the same house.
I think I was about 12 when I wanted to check out 'To Kill a Mockingbird' from the county library. The librarian insisted on calling my mother, to ask if it was okay.
My mother laughed histerically, and said, "She can read whatever she wants!"
I don't think that librarian ever looked me in the eye again.
My father was very proud of his collection of banned books, and he made sure we read as many of them as possible.
I grew up in union strong liberal San Francisco....I know nothing else but liberal since all my family is union and liberal.
I've traveled the world on my own nickel but have been a resident of Northern California my entire life, from SF to North shore Lake Tahoe, Back to SF then to Berkeley, up to Chico and now Humboldt County and Marin.
I only know liberal....and books always have been and are still a major part of my life and always will be, just like traveling....So you know how I feel.
Golly gee whiz!
Let's see....they used to ban books (and burn them) someplace else....
Now where was that???? Er....um....
Oh yeah...now I remember.
Nazi Germany.
Nicole Belle @ 25:
Both very fine writers on this blog, hence the confusion among some people.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a very eclectic household as well. Before I got a television set in my bed room, one could hear the sound of my fingertip dragging across the sentences of practically any kind of book.
futt the wuck @ 92:
America has a precedence for this kind of behavior though. Anyone remember John Lennon and the Beatle ban/burnings in '66?
Italy and The Vatican (lol) are still notorious censors of provocative information.
Maldoror @ 76:
Like anything by the Marquis de Sade, for instance? Well, I've read some of that garbage and didn't enjoy it, but I will still stand up for the right of anyone who willfully wishes to be as grossed out as I was by those pieces of crap.
His works are banned in Australia, btw.
Meditating Upside-Down @ 15:
I think it's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" that has a poem titled "Who Ate the Baby?" Some group with nothing better to do was offended that it advocated cannibalism....
How sad. I hope we wake up soon.
The covers of certain National Geographics taught me I had a penis.
ontheleftcoast @ 88:
I started reading to my son as soon as he was born. We read every night until he was in 4th or 5th grade and he decided that he was too old for it any more, which was probably a good thing, because he was starting to find his own literary entertainment. (Yes, that was indeed the plan.) I bought a tee shirt at Border's books years ago that had a long, long list of banned books and made it a point to make sure that he was exposed to as many of the age-appropriate books on that list as possible. ("Superfudge"? Banned? Some people need lives.)And I don't think that he's ever broken a dish, worshiped satan, eaten a baby, or voted for a Republican. And I got to read some great books, too.
("Speak freely amongst yourselves")
David Wolf @ 21:
Let's not leave out Biblical incest, which if a pregnancy results, Palin would force the mother to bear the child. As for rape, you'd have to pay for the rape kit in Wasilla!
BTW, good to hear NonnyMouse is still around.
I think I read Ivanhoe around 10
Learned the Ten Commandments from Mad Magazine by 7
But I was always surprised Ivanhoe wasn't about some Russian and his slutty girlfriend.
Of course what I did a lot of was leafing through medical encyclopedias that for some reason my mother collected.
Well said, Nonnymouse @ 84. Thanks for the response. I'm just trying to keep us (me)honest, like hello's sentiments at #96. I get a kick out of the fact that some of my favorite books have been banned, but I still think that defending expression with which one agrees doesn't make one a free speech advocate. It's not until we defend expression that pisses us off that we earn that title.
Hey! I grew up in almost the same household! Although I never found any porn stashed in the garage, more's the pity. :-)
Celebrate freedom. Read a banned book.
My Grandpa had to hide his "communist literature" behind other books on the shelves of his home. He was a scientist who worked for the government. And HIS kid, the pink diaper baby, is my mother. She was president of the PTA and taught us about wonderful, wonderful May Day which was replaced by Labor Day because it was socialist. And our home had floor to ceiling book shelves in multiple rooms.
I read Lady Chatterley's Lover the same summer I read the Bible (which now resides on MY bookshelf next to God's Breath, the Kama Sutra, and the rest of my "spirituality" books).
I made friends with a Mexican lady that lived down the street in a house she shared with a bunch of unrelated men who worked in the tomato fields. We had citrus trees and so I filled bags with citrus and gave them to all of my neighbors for Christmas - I put some small toys and some other groceries in her bag for her five children. She saw that all my neighbors had a bag so she didn't feel like it was charity. I gave her a bicycle and rain coat so she could get around easier. Our children played together. I invited her and her children over for dinner and that was the last time we spoke and the last time I ever saw her children.
She was reading the titles of the books in my book case before dinner. She made the comment that "all you care about is money" - I was a Finance major. Then she asked where my Bible was and I told her it was currently in the garage - I was using it as a weight for another book on which I was repairing the binding. LOL.
The last time I saw her, it was pouring rain and I saw my old blue bike and that big yellow rain slicker peddling down the street toward the convenience store where she worked.
People are strange.
Labor Day was Unionist
Or was it Maternalist?
106 Rudy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=old6xeBVIfw
If you readers care anything at all about keeping censorship of the type desired by palin and her ilk, VOTE THE OBAMA/BIDEN TICKET on November 4th.
Remember that we need to have enough votes to overcome the attempts at election fraud that are sure to come from the republicans and the vast monies that control them.
The country cannot afford to have mccain/palin as our next administration - just look what has happened over the last 8 years, culminating in the current financial meltdown.
In the days of my youth I was encouraged to read from an early age, an opportunity made all the more wonderful by the presence of the public library not 500 yards from my house. If I turned up missing, my parents knew where to find me - the first place they looked was the library.
My first encounter with the idea that were certain books I was not allowed to read came when I was seven. I found a magazine near the school bus stop and was reading it when I got home.
The magazine was Screw.
Later, in eighth grade, I was nearly suspended for doing a book report on Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, and the teacher didn't buy my argument that she hadn't prohibited us from getting books out of the public library.
So I read anything that comes under my hand, as I always have, and to hell with those who say I can't. I've published three SF novels and have a long-running serial on the Internet.
No one tells me what I can and cannot read.
Ex-Canuck @ 109:
Amended Post # 109 - left out some very important words. Sorry...
I'm getting ready to move, and a good third of what has to be packed and carried is books, books, and more books. Thank goodness I've given those I won't read again to the local library. I was reading before I was three, which turned me into a writer, and I'm crazy about reading and books.
When I still could tolerate time with my former college roommate--before she turned into a rabid born-again bigoted, judgmental, vicious, and close-minded fundamentalist--I was struck by the total absence of printed materials in her home. No books (except for one bible, and that didn't look as though it ever had been opened), no magazine, no newspapers, not even any letters or postcards. I would have suffered serious withdrawal pain had I not brought my own stash of books, and it made me realize how closed she and her cohorts are.
ysbaddaden @ 108:
DUDE! That's one of my favorites. Thanks.
Nicolle,
Like you , I was raised with lots of books and magazines, like the reference to reading cereal boxes. Reading is everything. My offspring were good readers and thus peppered their teachers with questions (I'm so proud of them) and took nothing at face value. They asked their teachers in 4th grade about how and why did the California indian's disappear and exploded the myth of romantic California of the missions. That back to school night was a bit tense. One book that should be mentioned as important for young high school age students? "The Student as Nigger" by Jerry Farber (Professor at San Diego State back in the day of the SDS. Probably couldn't be titled as it is now, but still very important. my copy is dog-eared and my "kids" still borrow it from time to time.
READ!
Hmm, we have the same literary background (up until the hard core novel experience), but my folks were/are hard core paleocons, something my father absolutely hates about me. When I go to their home now, there is none of the things I used to read; no National Geographic ("damned enviro rag!"), no news weeklies ("liberal crap!"), nothing but romance novels and engineering trade journals.
What is different now from my childhood is the wingers have figured out that you can most easily control the kiddies if you have their minds controlled from day 1, and the best way to do that is to limit their written (and visual) media consumption.
I recall my fundie older sister telling me she was not happy about getting TV again because it was full of satanic things like the Smurfs, at which point her 6 year old son piped up with "yeah, Smurfs BAD!" and made a big "X" symbol with his hands. And on that anecdote, I rest my case.
If you want to get onto the banned list, at this point all it would probably take would be to throw in a couple of N-words and a little bit of anti-Semitism, and voila: you've hit the bigtime.
113 Rudy
DUDE
Here's anudder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pISgVQOj_QM
BTW, why the HELL would anything by Shel Silverstein be banned??!! That makes no friggin’ sense.
Shel did cartoons for Playboy before writing kids books!
The Great Smoke Off
Actually, Shel Silverstein was a man. But I agree that banning him and anyone else is foolish. How can you make good choices if you don't know all the viewpoints?
Sandi @ 80:
I understand her pain. I have a lot of books and I cannot bear to part with one of them. They are like my children, which I love
dearly, but there is nothing so wonderful as reading a book and the mental picture you generate of the impressions.
good for you! I am envious of what you knew as a child since I only had the Blue Jacket's Manual and high school year books.
and really groovy you have big vocabulary but learn to put periods for separate sentences inside the parentheses like high school comp level.
had a miserable life as english prof and this basic stuff still bugs solly
Thank god for books. While I was growing up we only had one television, thankfully, and when my father was home he
monopolized the viewing. I don't really enjoy watching sports on television and so I read.
I read everything I could get: magazines, newspapers, books, journals. It did not matter.
My mother loves to tell the story of how even as a toddler I would bring her the Sears catalog and ask her
to read it to me. I always have a book or two that I'm reading. It's my refuge.
My mother would buy Mad Magazine because she found it entertaining and she would also buy me National Lampoon.
During high school, my best bud's father would buy her the most outrageous books - "Fear of Flying," "Everything You Always
Wanted to Know About Sex....." "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," etc. He said it was because he didn't want to have to explain these things to her.
I would bring them home after she was done and no one ever said anything to me about it. Those books didn't turn me into
a sex fiend. They gave me a good base to understand my sexuality and helped me to appreciate that being a woman
that enjoyed sex was not a bad thing. I believe they allowed me to build the very healthy relationship I have with my husband
of 20 years.
My dad was a voracious reader. And through no prodding I picked up the habit and it has served me well.
Your children mimic their parents. Read to them and make sure they see you read. Have plenty of books around, even coloring and activity books.
it's never to late to start appreciating books either. my farm manager, who i love dearly, barely finished high school. i've known her 18 yrs when i got into a series that i talked about with everyone. hey, it's vampire porn, but it's still reading. she got sick of hearing the rest of us discuss the books so she borrowed the first one. now, i can't keep a book in the house without her grabbing it. not only romance stuff but crime, politics, whatever. she just needed to be introduced to something that she liked. & yes, there are books in every room of this house & some are on the banned list.
I spent the last 35 years as a high school principal in the south. Book banning would come up each year without fail. Most of the time it was an individual parent who would object to a particular book assigned for English, usually Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird . Both these could generally be worked through with the parent.
You knew you were going to have problems when the parent showed up with the preacher. You could bet next Sunday the whole congregation would call the school board . The whole next week would be spent answering inquires from board members and the press. The press loves to lock on to a censorship issue.
But not all objections come from parents or students. I once had a board member,a big citrus grower, object to Grapes of Wrath because it dealt with migrant labor.
However no one ever objected to the bible. I always thought the story of old Lot and his daughters was pretty hot.
Anais @ 101: ...BTW, good to hear NonnyMouse is still around.
*Sigh*
Yes, I'm still here. I'm just not as visible as I used to be; I'm currently doing the production proofing for the novel coming out in February, finishing the first draft of my next novel and well underway with writing my doctoral thesis, all while working 'part time' as a live-in childminder (and anyone who does childminding knows there's no such thing as part time to it) in order to subsidize my rent and doing a bit of on-line tutoring to make the leftover ends meet. I LOVE C&L, will continue to post articles now and again, and even if I'm not commenting as much as I used to, I read every one.
I'm here for the long-haul.
I was chosen as the "random selection" to be searched before a flight from Denver to Tampa like 2 years ago. (They didn't like "temporary" in red letters on my Florida driver's license because I'm a Canadian citizen I think) TSA went through my bags, no issues, until he looked at my book. I was reading "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. (fairly harmless I think, there are worse out there at least) He asked me what the book was about, if it was slanted/anti-US, why is it "a people's history" and not just "history" since there can only be one absolute history of the US, etc. All of this while my page marker was set to like page 9 of the book, lol.... In the end, he let me go with my book but made it fairly clear that "the state" didn't approve of my reading material and that I should be careful as what I decide to read.....
This is a very nice, free and democratic country I think, lol.........
The very thought of banning books makes me cringe. I also grew up reading whatever I wanted to read. Looking at the collages made me remember books that I STILL haven't read. Banning A Light In the Attic? PUHLEASE! That is some of the most touching and amusing poetry ever. I taught second grade for many years. The children LOVE those poems. They relate to the content.
I wonder how much of a win-win situation it is to donate used books that households almost never read.
Now, isn't it technically, in the least, a violation of the 1st Amendment to ban any kind of literature?
I remember in a couple of episodes of the Simpsons where Springfield Elementary banned books like Hop on Pop, and where principal Skinner spent hours crossing out the sasquatch in the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn books.
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