mary e. pearson

~ Banned Books Week begins tomorrow.  More info about Banned Books Week can be found at the ALA website. 
Here is a post I wrote a few years ago about banned books that still reflects my feelings.

~ It always comes in threes.  I hope that is true.  Broken dishwasher.  Broken electrical circuit.  Broken car battery.  I should be all clear for a while.

~  Trying to finish article on setting.  Pray that breaker is fixed and electricity doesn't go out again.

~ Yesterday there was a review for The Miles Between in the LA Times!  I know that The Miles Between is kind of an odd book, and they say as much in their review--because it is odd--but it was wonderful that the reader got it.  And there have been some film nibblings.  I can so picture it being filmed in that quirky, larger than life vein of The Big Fish.  I loved that movie.

Have a great weekend all.

What do the following books have in common?

Little Red Riding Hood by Brothers Grimm
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
My Brother Sam is Dead by James and Christopher Collier
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Nancy Drew (the series) by Carolyn Keene
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Bible

What do all these books have in common?
1) I have read them all, either as a child, student, or adult.
2) I have loved them all (and actually hated a couple)
3) They all shaped me–whether I loved them OR hated them
4) I am grateful that I had the opportunity to read them ALL.
5) And finally, ALL of these books at one time have been challenged or banned.

What this means, is that if the person who challenged these books had their way, I might never have had the opportunity to read these books. My right to exercise my choice would have been taken away. And oh my, I have some very particular feelings about choice.

On a very gut level reaction, I am insulted when someone insists on making a choice for me. What they are in essence saying is: I am smarter than you. I am a better parent than you. I am a better citizen than you. I am better informed than you. I am better, period. Yes, they are better–to make decisions about their own life. But please, not about mine. I may be stupid, biased, swayed, uninformed, have bad breath or am just plain ignorant, but CHOICE is something I value. More than value. It defines everything about me, who I am in this world, and what I might be in the next one. Do not take away my choice.

And to illustrate my point I will cite a story, a story from historically, one of the most banned and challenged books of all time: The Bible. In the book of Genesis God created man and woman in his image. That image included free will. CHOICE. He could have made man and woman in the image of robots–always doing everything as they were told. Things might have gone much easier for the world if He had, right? But He didn’t. IF, in all his wisdom, He gave man and woman the right to choose, and not only that but he gave them this right in the first pages of the most widely read book of all time, who am I to take that God given right away? Do I have idiot written on my forehead? (okay, I still cannot program my vcr, but you know what I mean)

By now you are probably well aware that this is Banned Books Week. The problem with banning books is that there isn’t a book on earth that isn’t disliked by someone. If we got rid of every book that someone disliked, the books that we love would be among them and they would be gone too. I can’t imagine a world without books. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Reading Little Red Riding Hood as a child certainly impacted me (read my bio ; ) but I survived it and am none the worse for wear. Ban Little Red Riding Hood? Preposterous!