CNN reports on “an ironic effect” of efforts to remove books from libraries in America. “The more certain books are singled out, the more people want to read them.”
And for some U.S. teenagers, “banned book clubs, recent book banning attempts have been a springboard for wider discussions around censorship.”
The Banned Book Club at Firefly Bookstore [started by 8th grader Joslyn Diffenbaugh] read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” as its first pick. While the satirical novella, which makes a pointed critique of totalitarianism, isn’t one of the books currently being challenged in the US, it was banned in the Soviet Union until its fall and was rejected for publication in the UK during its wartime alliance with the USSR. And it faced challenges in Florida in the ’80s for being “pro-communist.” That history made for some thought-provoking conversations. “It taught a lot because it had references to different forms of government that maybe some adults didn’t like their kids reading about, even though it was run by pigs,” Diffenbaugh said. “I really thought it shouldn’t have been banned for those reasons, or at all.”
Teenagers at the Common Ground Teen Center in Washington, Pennsylvania, formed a banned book club soon after a Tennessee school district voted to remove “Maus” from an eighth grade curriculum. But while the graphic novel about the Holocaust was the catalyst for the club, says director Mary Jo Podgurski, the first title they chose to read was, fittingly, “Fahrenheit 451” — the 1953 dystopian novel about government censorship that itself has been challenged over the years. “Obviously this whole idea of taking away books that they wanted to read or that they thought they should read sparked a nerve in them,” said Podgurski, an educator and counselor who oversees the Common Ground Teen Center….
Since reading “Fahrenheit 451,” the club has also discussed “Animal Farm” and “1984,” which has been challenged for its political themes and sexual content. So far, the young readers at the Common Ground Teen Center have been puzzled as to why those books were once deemed inappropriate. “I often wonder, do adults understand what kids have in their phones?” Podgurski said. “They have access to everything. Saying ‘don’t read this book’ shows that you’re not understanding teen culture. Young people have access to much information. What they need is an adult to help them process it.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
