Sorry I haven't posted this week. I've been working hard--have 3 proposals I'm trying to juggle right now, as well as the day job--but that's just not interesting to anyone but me. :) I was glancing through a book about all the "challenged" books in the last few years today, though, and just wanted to share some of the more absurd/ridiculous entries. (Not that banning ANY book is not ridiculous--there is almost nothing that makes me angrier than one person telling another how they should think, or that they should not think at all--these are just some of the oddest):
1) "Ida and the Wool Smugglers" (the mother is "neglectful" because she sent her daughter to the neighbors even though the smugglers were out and about)
2) "The Stupids Die" and other "Stupids" titles ("because children shouldn't refer to anyone as 'stupid'". Well, that's just stupid.)
3) Hans C. Anderson's "The Little Mermaid" (it's "pornographic" and contains "Satanic pictures")
4) "The Life and Times of Renoir" (because of the nude paintings--that wicked pornographer Renoir)
5) Jill Anderson's "Pumsy" ("propagates principles of secular humanism" and "new age religion" and also "drives a wedge between children and parents." Oh, noooo, not secular humanism!!!)
6) Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings" (among many other things, it "preaches bitterness and hatred against whites." Maybe on the grounds that it never actually tells us why the caged bird sings...)
7) Francis Bacon's "Advancement of Learning" (granted, it was banned by the Inquisition in 1640, but it still makes me mad)
8) Edna Barth's "Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts" ("interests little minds into accepting the devil with all of his evil works")
9) "Literature of the Supernatural", featuring stories by Poe, Bradbury, Dante, Shakespeare, et al ("promotes the occult, sexual promiscuity, and anti-Americanism")
10) Bonnie Bogart's "Ewoks Join the Fight" ("every page except for 3 has some sort of violence--somebody gets knocked down or the Death Star is blown up". Surprisingly, not on the grounds that Ewoks are the most obnoxiously saccharine creatures this side of Jar Jar Binks)
11) Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Aurora Leigh" (Boston, 1857--"the hysterical indecencies of an erotic mind". I wish someone would say that about one of my books)
More tomorrow...
3 comments:
These made me laugh outloud. I wish someone would try to ban my books. Or maybe hold a book burning. Or a simple protest would do.
(No eighth grade teacher should be writing that kind of trash!!--My books would fly off the shelves)
--Gabi
But do your books interest little minds in accepting the devil and all his works, Gabi? :))
Oh, I share your outrage. As for the caged bird thing, my husband always says 'because it's a goddamn bird, and that's what they do!' Hee, hee.
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