balmofgilead: (dudley pippin)
From the [livejournal.com profile] altfriday5:

1. The list of the top 100 challenged or banned books from 1990 - 2000 is here: http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm (or, for a less youth-oriented list, go here: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/banned/). Which of these books have you read?Read more... )

2. Which of those books, if any, had a strong effect on you -- either positive or negative? How did they affect you?
Yes, the lone nude sunbather in Where's Waldo? caused me to be attracted to women! (Um...that is not true. I never even knew there was a nude sunbather in there until I asked someone why it was banned.)

I really enjoyed I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings,and it gave me enormous respect for Maya Angelou. I also love Lois Lowry's books (The Giver and Anastasia Krupnik). I think I sort of model myself after Anastasia sometimes. Also for awhile my mom cooked cholent (stew-dish with meat and beans) with the meat inside a stocking to keep it together. We got this idea from one of the Anastasia books.

Bridge to Terebithia made me cry, which doesn't happen often.

3. Have you ever been personally affected by or involved in a challenge or a ban of a book? If yes, tell us a bit about it.
My school censored parts of The Crucible. I think it was the part where a boy and girl hold hands behind a shed. Also, they cut out the pages with some statistics & the chapters about sex and prostitution in a book in our school library.

I wasn't allowed to do a book report on Franny and Zooey because Salinger also wrote Catcher in the Rye (my teacher just wanted to play it safe, and I acquiesced. I'm sure she has read both books.) My friend's cousin got The Red Pony removed from the curriculum because it has a scene where the horses mate.

And they didn't censor Hamlet when I was in school, but in succeeding years they cut out some pages and replaced them with "clean" dialogue. It's a tiny bit possible that I caused this, 'cause I pointed out to a younger friend the whole bit about "post/With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!" or something. She and I laughed about it, but it's entirely possible that until she drew people's attention to it, no one had noticed.

These things haven't really affected me, in truth, because I've always been allowed to read whatever I want and to wander around the library picking out my own books. There were girls in my school for whom this was not the case, though.

4. Have you ever read a book that you felt should have been banned? If yes, why?
The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, because it is a font of misinformation in girls' religious schools. Okay, not really *banned*, just removed from use as a textbook. I don't endorse book-banning.

5. How do you feel about the banning of books? Is it an important issue to you?
I strongly disagree with book banning.
balmofgilead: (Default)
From the [livejournal.com profile] altfriday5:

1. Who is missing from you?
people I haven't met yet that I will meet in life. also, my father.

2. Who is missing you?
no one that I know of, really

3. Who are you not missing?
my old landlord. people from the religious community. family members.

4. Who or what wouldn't you miss? (I realize that couldn't be taken at least a couple of different ways; I leave the interpretation up to the answerer ;-).

stress
anxiety
there is very little that I "wouldn't miss" in the sense of "I wouldn't miss seeing The Beatles in concert for the world." feeling that way about things can lead to stress and disappointment, so I've weaned myself of off it.

5. What is missing from you?
passion--the life's-passion kind, not the romantic kind
(perhaps this is connected to the second part of #4)

Profile

balmofgilead: (Default)
balmofgilead

May 2017

S M T W T F S
 123456
78910 111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031   

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated May. 24th, 2025 12:35 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios