It's one of our favorite weeks of the book year.... the time when we proudly celebrate READING BANNED BOOKS for BANNED BOOKS WEEK. I know, it seems comical that we're still living in a time when books gets banned. We're moms, we get it. There are some books we don't necessarily want our kids reading (at least not until they're older), but we'd never take the right a way from someone else's child or even an adult, to read a book.
Working in education, I can tell you the importance of having a variety of books that a variety of kids can identity with. Books are powerful tools, and it's important for kids/teens/everyone, to have access to them. It's frustrating that yet again, we're still talking about banned books.
Here are some of the most banned books.
I'm a proud reader of most every book on the list. There are only a couple books I didn't read. Funny enough, a number of these books were ones I read in high school like; Wuthering Heights, Animal Farm, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, Brave New World, 1984, Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Cather in the Rye. The others I read for fun.
Check out the list of 2016's most banned books. Here are a few of the 10 most channeled, out of the 323 challenges last year: **I only included the kids and YA books off the list.
Find out more about this list here. Sadly, it's not surprising that a number of the banned books included LGBTQ issues. Let me tell you how heartbreaking it is to hear kids say they don't want their peers to know their parents are gay, because they're worried about what kinds of things other kids will say to them. That's just one reason why kids needs access to books where they can relate and find themselves in the stories so they don't have to feel alone. To date, Two Boys Kissing is the only book that I highlighted countless passages from, because David's writing is just so moving. This is about love, and acceptance and it's one that definitely made me see things in a whole new light. I even donated a copy of it to my local library.
Did you know?
As a parent, I get that there are books that are not suitable for all kids. However, all readers deserve access to books. Whether or not your it's okay for your kid to read a book, there are kids that deserve the right to read a book. Even if you don't like it. No one has the right to take that away. As a parent/adult you have the right to decide what's best for your child to read, and yourself, but you don't have the right to make that choice for everyone or anyone else. The book you may say no to, will be the one book another reader desperately needed to read.
* All images used from here.