Banned Book Week

Recently, it was 'Banned Book Week' in the U.S. There are going to be special readings of books in bookstores and in public to protest some of the books banned in school that have been "banned" for kids in some schools here. This society occasionally bans some books for juveniles, which is probably a good idea since they may not be mature enough to assimilate the material and because they can eventually read anything at age 18 anyway. But the idea of banning literature for children is a tenuous enterprise because sometimes innocent books get banned too.

Something called BannedBooksWeek.Org even has a site where one can post videos of themselves reading excerpts of a banned book on a YouTube channel that show the book shouldn't be banned after all. The right to read whatever is written has always been a sacred one for adults here, yet when is it appropriate to censor for kids? For example, the silly/harmless Twilight series of books that are so popular with kids have been banned from some school libraries as being "too violent or too sexual". Yet any teen can get that book series from any bookstore, on line or at a public library.

In fact, very few books are actually banned in U.S. schools. A "banned" book is a book that has been removed from a public library or school's shelves or reading lists due to pressure from someone who isn't a librarian or teacher (usually nutty parents). In practice, this means pretty much any book that's pulled off the shelves of a library can be counted as "banned." Usually banning emanates from a fanatical zealot group or parent who is out of the mainstream view.

I wonder if in this age of the internet and easy access parents can really ban books that their kids are attracted to. Probably not very easily, since any child with a computer can find any book on line. And a free society should be wary of rushing to ban books for its kids. More often than not, not reading is a bigger problem today for kids than is reading too much....of anything, even "banned material".