Happy Banned Books Week!
We'll never know.
Happy Banned Books Week, writers! Part of the fun of reading is that it can take you new places, teach you new things, and most importantly, open your mind to new ideas. Plenty of philosophers from Voltaire to Ayn Rand took to fiction and literature with their ideological treatises–but the anti-church and anti-government stuff isn’t all that gets censored. Remember Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret? Banned. A Wrinkle in Time? Banned. CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS!? BANNED.
Censorship is a hindrance to–well, everything, really, and it can affect your career, when you get there. You wanna write a book about puberty. Sorry, it’ll probably be banned. So instead you try a clean-cut fantasy that makes no mention of bodily functions. Gotta be safe, right? Nope, promoting witchcraft. And you DEFINITELY don’t want to write anything that involves rebellion against the establishment. That goes without saying.
So celebrate by visiting these links and reading a banned book. Personally, Goosebumps never scared me.
Banned Books Week: The Official Sit
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The Huffington Post made an infograph on the top 10 most challenged books of 2010: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/top-banned-books-2010_n_976846.html
Plenty of big names are on the list, and lots of YA because that tends to be the targeted group, no thanks to panicky parents and school administrators. Twilight, The Hunger Games, Crank, and (really?) Brave New World are all in the top ten!
I know! Ugh, there are so many things wrong with all those challenges. Nickel and Dimed, inaccurate? Uh, I’m living it! Twilight, sexually explicit?? I don’t even like the series and I’m not buying it. Stephanie Meyer has explicitly said that the book is pro-abstinence.
And the really warped thing is that even as YA lit is targeted, it’s young adults who are trying to find outlets for discussion about the topics represented in books like Twilight, The Hunger Games, and Crank. They’re banning exactly what these kids are looking for.