balmofgilead

From the 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.

I've seen this meme wherein people should post (if it's true for them) the statement "I'm pro-choice, and I would have an abortion."

It's definitely something I would consider if I found myself in a situation where I was pregnant and it wasn't the right time or place or whatnot, but I don't know how likely I'd be to chose it. Chances of either event ever happening, however, are slim. But I think I'd base my decision on whether or not I wanted to have and raise a baby, rather than whether abortion is murder or whether fetuses are people. Which I suppose means that either I don't think they are, or that I'm okay with murder in select cases. Dunno. I doubt I'd stick out nine months of pregnancy followed by childbirth only to give a baby up for adoption.

On a slightly different note, it's quite paradoxical that there are so many children who don't have good homes and yet it's supposedly pretty difficult to adopt a baby--at least, it takes a long time and costs a good deal of money. I understand some of the reasons for that--many of the people who want to adopt want white infants, not non-white older kids, and many of the kids who could use better homes (or homes altogether) are non-white older kids. Still, it seems odd. Why do adoptions cost money anyway? I understand that there are things which need to be subsidized, like social workers and orphanages or whatnot, but why heap those costs on the people who are already doing the favor of giving some kids a good home?