Banned Book Week

If you want a kid to read a book, tell him he's not allowed to pick it up.

I've always found it interesting what books end up being banned or challenged and why. For example, the children's book Make Way for Ducklings, a Caldecott Award winner, was banned because the author photo on the back showed him holding a cigarette. Most of the novels my old English Department taught have been banned at one time: Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, The Crucible, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Huckleberry Finn to name a few.

When parents voiced a concern in my classroom, I would try to accommodate them. I'd either suggest an alternative or let them to select a different book for their child that still met my goal of teaching literary analysis. I feel like it's a parent's responsibility to check on what their kids are reading. Parents should have the right to say they don't want their child to read a particular book. HOWEVER, no parent has the right to say no one is allowed to read a specific title. That's censorship.