This week is Banned Book Week. I have to admit I’ve never met a book I thought should be banned. I’ve read many books that were banned at one point or another and always came away disappointed. You see when my folks would get me a ‘banned’ book I thought there HAD to be something exciting and salacious about it to earn such a dubious honor. Then I read Grapes of Wrath, Catcher In The Rye, The Great Gatsby, 1984, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Clockwork Orange, and so on… I came away with great stories but nothing so salacious that I saw any reason to ban it. At first being a skeptical high schooler I thought maybe parents got together and banned it to make teenagers want to read good literature. Then I thought maybe it was banned as a marketing gimmick. Finally I came to the sad realization that no these books were banned because there are people out there who want to control our thoughts. They want to decide what’s okay to write and thus think about and what’s not. They are under the delusion if you don’t look at stuff you don’t like it’ll go away. (more…)
Mary Louise Eklund 