Banned Books Week

I've been following a bit of drama the past couple of weeks regarding banned books, mostly involving banning of books my Ellen Hopkins and Laurie Halse Anderson (you can read more about their stories on their blogs, linked in their names). I was mostly watching the events unfold via these authors' twitter feeds (@EllenHopkinsYA and @halseanderson), in which they linked to blog posts describing their experiences with banning, and even news stories about the bans. Each time I read another instance of banning or watched a newscast about it on You Tube, I rolled my eyes and shook my head at the ridiculousness of it all.

Then, last night, I was shocked to hear a news teaser about a local attempted banning (story here). I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I watched the story (even though DH really, really wanted to change the channel), and I think my mouth just dropped more and more as the story continued. Book banning makes me mad, period, but I really lost my cool when a woman came on and said (paraphrased), "I don't want my daughter reading that kind of stuff."

I actually yelled at the TV at that point, and I think DH thought I was nuts.

How is it a library's responsibility to control what *your* child is reading? What happened to actually *parenting* your own child?

Bottom line, I think that this is exactly what is wrong with society today, in general. People are lazy. They want others to control what their child reads. If their child isn't doing well in school, the school is failing the child. People want everything handed to them without doing any of the work themselves.

Ironically, the lead story on another news channel was a child who died from an overdose, and 8^th grade girls who overdosed on prescription meds at school. But, no, these kids are too young to read books about the consequences of doing drugs.

 

Anyway, go out and read a few banned books this week!