This is "Banned Books Week"

[ADoyle90815]

I also plan to read at least one banned book this week, and I do consider myself lucky that my parents encouraged us to read, so they never banned any books in the house. I noticed that most of my childhood favorites and current favorites are on that list. I was in college by the time the first Harry Potter book came out, and sometime after the movies started coming out, I finally read the books because at first, I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Now, I look forward to when my niece starts reading the series as it became one of my favorites.

[mockingbird]

I read JK Rowling's new book this week. It's not on the list obviously but the fundies would hate it, lots of sex and drugs. I don't have time to read anything else - I also usually like to read banned books during this week - so I am counting it for the content.

Honestly one of my favorites for making the list is My Sister's Keeper, because you would think the obvious reason would be the ethical issues in the book. No, it's because a very minor character is a lesbian.

O Latin, my sister also ran into problems reading outside her age range because the librarian thought it wasn't possible for her to be at whatever level she was at. They wouldn't believe my mom and made my sister get tested for reading level before she could check out books from the section she wanted to... which I think was only like two grades above or something like that. I get that they wanted the kids to check out books they could read on their own (vs. being read to) but still the reaction was pretty ridiculous. My elementary school (we went to different elementary schools... the ironic thing was that my sister was at a public school and I went to a tiny Catholic school) also had an older vs. younger section but you could get books from wherever you wanted. We also had our resident fundy-lite blogger get upset about a teacher reading Oliver Burton is a Sissy to her class because it supposedly encouraged boys to become feminine/GHEY. Luckily our district didn't do anything about it.

eta: We didn't have to get permission to read any books but we did have to get permission to watch The Patriot in 8th grade because it was rated R.

[jaynie]

That makes it sound like some kind of weird gift. "What'd you get the kids for Christmas?" "Oh, we got Mikey a chemistry set and Julie a little doll and pram and, of course, we got Susie that abortion she's been wanting. She's been nagging us about it since January, but you know teens, she's moved on to the next trend already. Something about diaper covers."

I remember having an argument with a friend about Harry Potter (she was strongly discouraged from reading it). She said it encouraged kids to break rules and disobey their parents. I said "Exactly!" I don't know who won the argument at the time, but nowadays she's more into it than I am.

[Lemonbalm]

Honestly 3 out of 5 of my favorite books made that list! Guess the Maxwells are getting their way in "banning" great literature to be replaced with the Moody books. Ugh.

[Lemonbalm]

I think I have the first of the sequels to the Giver, but I haven't been able to read it yet. I have such a long 'to-read' list, and everyone in my family is an avid reader so I try to balance what other people ask me about with the things I'd like to read first, lol. Hopefully I'll get a chance to read the sequel soon... Gathering Blue, I think it's called.

The Giver series is actually a quartet, the newest one just came up! Even as an adult The Giver still remains my favorite book and I am about to read the final book that literally just came out. They go in this order:

#1: The Giver (1993)

#2: Gathering Blue (2000)

#3: Messenger (2004)

#4: Son (2012)

Enjoy!