rthstewart (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rthstewart) wrote2013-09-24 10:09 am
rthstewart) wrote2013-09-24 10:09 am
Entry tags:
Banned Books Week
I didn't realize it was Banned Books Week (time to go put on my buttons and jewelry) until I saw the piece by Wonkette. So, go read something inappropriate!
Interestingly, Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants series tops the list this year as the book most challenged in 2012.
Now, let's be clear, to my sensibilities, parts of Captain Underpants are revolting. It's younger, fouler sibling, Adventures of Super Diaper Baby would make my stomach churn as I read them to my son. And I noticed that my child's K-2 school did not have the books on the library shelves, though it was very age appropriate and was available for purchase at the school-sponsored Scholastic Book Fair. As Wonkette rightly points out, the reason why I loathed it was the same reason that little kids LOVE IT. It is full of poop humor and they love it. LOVE IT. I knew lots of kids, my own included, who began making their own comics because of George and Harold. Dav Pilkey tapped into something marvelous and it inspires early and reluctant readers especially.
It by the way never fails to surprise me that Cat in the Hat is not on the list. I still maintain that Cat in the Hat is one of the most subversive children's books ever. "What would you do if your mother asked you?" Would you tell mother about the Cat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 who trashed your home while mother was away on some unspecified and probably nefarious errand? Who wants to be the naysaying fish when you could be the Cat? If one thinks in those terms (and I don't), Seuss is far more troubling than Captain Underpants.
So, go read a banned or challenged book. Go buy a banned or challenged book for a child or young adult. TRA LA LA, FIGHTING FOR TRUTH, JUSTICE AND ALL THINGS PRE-SHRUNK AND COTTONY!!
Interestingly, Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants series tops the list this year as the book most challenged in 2012.
Now, let's be clear, to my sensibilities, parts of Captain Underpants are revolting. It's younger, fouler sibling, Adventures of Super Diaper Baby would make my stomach churn as I read them to my son. And I noticed that my child's K-2 school did not have the books on the library shelves, though it was very age appropriate and was available for purchase at the school-sponsored Scholastic Book Fair. As Wonkette rightly points out, the reason why I loathed it was the same reason that little kids LOVE IT. It is full of poop humor and they love it. LOVE IT. I knew lots of kids, my own included, who began making their own comics because of George and Harold. Dav Pilkey tapped into something marvelous and it inspires early and reluctant readers especially.
It by the way never fails to surprise me that Cat in the Hat is not on the list. I still maintain that Cat in the Hat is one of the most subversive children's books ever. "What would you do if your mother asked you?" Would you tell mother about the Cat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 who trashed your home while mother was away on some unspecified and probably nefarious errand? Who wants to be the naysaying fish when you could be the Cat? If one thinks in those terms (and I don't), Seuss is far more troubling than Captain Underpants.
So, go read a banned or challenged book. Go buy a banned or challenged book for a child or young adult. TRA LA LA, FIGHTING FOR TRUTH, JUSTICE AND ALL THINGS PRE-SHRUNK AND COTTONY!!
no subject
Though for me, not Captain Underpants :) - I think I'll turn my attention to books suppressed or discouraged for political or social engineering reasons, of which there are multitudes, unhappily. (And I think Invisible Man has recently been , if not suppressed,strongly discouraged in some way?)
***
(Editing to add) Yes... after a few minutes scrabbling around on the internet...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/19/invisible-man-banned_n_3953740.html?utm_hp_ref=books&ir=Books
Invisible Man has been banned from school libraries in one county of North Carolina
(and editing again for a typo!)