BlackFaceType

Sunday was the beginning of Banned Books Week and I couldn’t be happier. It’s time to celebrate those books which were challenged by parents, PTAs and school boards not because of the difficulty in reading and understanding the text, but of its content. I don’t have any intention on preaching, but parents and school boards seem to think that modern kids don’t know anything about   racism, sexism, religious warfare and poverty and to expose them to it would open up the Pandora’s box to ruin their chaste childhoods.

I’ve met children who use the N-word without ever reading Mark Twain and knowing who Nigger Jim is. Kids are having unprotected sex and getting famous from “Teen Mom” without ever cracking the spine of Our Bodies, Ourselves. So the idea that books are somehow a gateway to hedonism  when cable television isn’t has always been above my understanding.

Here is a list of the most famous banned books. Which ones have you read? Are you surprised by some on the list? Share your own banned book story.