Read a Banned Book this Week

This week is Banned Books Week. In honor of that, this post is dedicated to the First Amendment.

As a child, I remember my classmates and peers citing the First Amendment when they were punished or given detention for saying something bad. “What about freedom of speech!?” They’d yell as they were dragged to the principal’s office. While I don’t think this legislation was written to save foul-mouthed children from detention, they do have a point. It makes me sad that during this day and age, the 21^st century, when we should be enlightened and accepting, people are still pushing to have books banned. Some of the best books of our time are censored: Doctor Zhivago, The Giver, Sophie’s Choice, Slaughterhouse Five, The Bluest Eye, even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

What is it about these books that people find so offensive that they would rather see them burned than read? Personally, I think it’s fear. Fear that these books will open the minds of children, that these books will inspire them, make them think. There is nothing more powerful than an open and accepting mind. When people learn new things and new ideas, the old ones are challenged. I think it’s this people fear more than anything: that their ideas, their laws, their beliefs will be challenged and proven to be wrong. These people miss the point. The point of these books, at least most of them, is to rock the boat, not capsize it. The point is to think, hope, dream, and create.

I think the saddest thing is that so many of these banned books are some of the most interesting I have ever read. Imagine if all controversial books were banned? How boring would life be? In Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence, all books are to be censored before being brought before the emperor. I think this quote says it all, “According to the old ways, any book that reached the imperial presence had to be read by three different commentators and pronounced free of sedition, obscenity, and lies. ‘In other words,’ the young king had said on ascending the throne, ‘we are only to read the most boring books ever written. Well, that won’t do at all.’” The Enchantress of Florence, by Salman Rushdie