Saturday, May 10, 2008

Banned Books

I came across this site through the Book and Reader Forums (see link on left). I glanced through it and was surprised by my reaction. Some of them I can understand the reasons, some of them I suddenly have the desire to read just because they're on the list, and some are ridiculous. I couldn't ignore the irony of this one especially considering I read it so recently:

Fahrenheit 451by Ray Bradbury
This book is about censorship and those who ban books for fear of creating too much individualism and independent thought. In late 1998, this book was removed from the required reading list of the West Marion High School in Foxworth, Mississippi. A parent complained of the use of the words "God damn" in the book. Subsequently, the superintendent instructed the the teacher to remove the book from the required reading list.


Your thoughts on this list? What do you think about banning books? Are there any that should be banned and which ones?



2 comments:

Zen of Writing said...

There are some that maybe should be banned because of how bad they are...

Kidding. I oppose censorship, but I wonder how many of those kids rushed off to find a copy of Fahrenheit 451 because it was banned?

Anonymous said...

A book banned in school ?

I was surprised at first but it was logical. A school is a place to create white-collar workers, the persons who can do the job. And job means slavery for you are not free. when you do a job you are no longer an independent-thinker and this is what companies want, they want employees, who can do the job as told, they do not want independent thinkera and free human beings and this is the responsibility of current education system, to provide employees to the companies. The school is not the place to create free-thinkers and society-building-individuals, this is what real-life is for.