"Until I Feared I Would Lose It, I Never Loved to Read ... "

[chomiji]

From the American Library Association: "To Kill a Mockingbird has been challenged and banned nationwide because it contains racial slurs and adult themes."

For more about Banned Books Week, see Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read at the the American Library Association's site.

Comments

[blackcatsboon]

Is this for real?! They've actually banned that book over on your side of the pond?!

[chomiji]

Yes, in some jurisdictions. No, not nationally.

Remember that we have no national school system - school systems vary by city or county, although states nowadays sometimes set graduation standards. Local libraries are also pretty much autonomous at the city or county level. Some school and library districts are full of very conservative religious fundamentalists who will ban all sorts of things - even when their own children are not in the school system because they are being home-schooled.

They think they are doing the Lord's work in keeping trash and filth away from innocents whose parents and teachers are falling down on the job.

It's a real problem over here.

[macavitykitsune.livejournal.com]

They're fucking kidding, right? I credit that book with sensitising me to exactly those issues, and my mother (who teaches English and English literature to grade schoolers) has been using it as a springboard for race rights issues discussions for over a decade now. Way to shove things under the covers, guys.

[blackcatsboon]

Wow. It's just that I studied that book in high school and while, yes, it does contain "racial slurs and adult themes", it's pretty clear to anyone with half a brain that it's not advocating them.

It's not a book I particularly enjoyed reading or would necessarily read again, but I do think it should be available for people to read in order to learn about things like racism.

Guess I should be grateful I live in England, huh?