Writer's Block: Book review

[dieewigenacht]

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Well...that's a good one.

At first I thought about saying something between the lines of "Twilight, and any other book written by Stephanie Meyer."
However that would have been incredibly childish, because really I just hate the thing. However it involves young people with literature (In a very mediocre way that is) and this can evolve into something deeper, some sort of "I liked this book, therefore I'll read more, from other authors" (That's me, trying to express myself in english)

After a while I decided that, I would never ban a book from a high school library, I do believe that there are books more appropriate than others for certain ages, but I also believe this kind of guide, of what kids are allowed to read is somehow a problem. Sure, everyone wants the best for the kids, but when that involves burying them in the ignorance regarding sexuality, for example, is just wrong.

I'm talking, of course, as a Mexican here. And, as everyone must know, Mexicans don't read, as simple as that. The average Mexican reads less than a book per year (Less than a book! Dear God, I want to cry every time I hear that) therefore banning some sort of books from a high school library would be not only stupid, but unnecessary, after all, kids don't read.

That's what takes me back to the Meyer stuff. Twilight is getting a lot of fans, and yes, the thing (Not book, never book) is mediocre at it's best, but people read it, which is good after all, certainly not the best reading to start with, but well, every little bit counts.

Which is the whole point of the story, I think the answer would be not only not to ban a single book, but to allow kids to get to know good books in simpler ways. Somehow start a program for young readers, giving them simple books with good content and allowing them to make their own mind about the things they read, you know, critical reading!!

I would be careful with books regarding love though. I have nothing against love, but I do believe that filling the mind of young readers with ideas so romanticized is wrong, but that's just me, mind you, I hate Romeo and Juliet for the same reason.

As a conclusion I want to say that, no, you just can't ban a book, it's a horrible and cruel idea, what we should do is teach young readers how to recognize a good book from a bad one, again, critical thinking and reading.

Comments

Agreed!

[cursor-mundi.livejournal.com]

Book banning gets into all sorts of uncomfortable judgments and usually comes down to personal taste, dressed up in argument and with a side helping of statistical analysis (and statistics can be used to argue that the sky is green, so it's not like having numbers is necessarily a definitive statement, either!). I'm doing a unit on Twilight right now, and one of the articles I had my kids read is "'Wise Censorship': Cultural Authority and the Scorning of Juvenile Series Books, 1890-1940" by Kathleen Chamberlain (in Scorned Literature: Essays on the History and Criticism of Popular Mass-Produced Fiction in America, eds. Lydia Cushman Schurman and Deidre Johnson, Greenwood Press, 2002). And this article essentially lays out exactly this sort of situation that you see with Twilight and in Mexican libraries: it examines several banned book surveys, the reasons given for banning the books, and the reasons given for preferring other books over the books that are banned. What it comes down to, in my analysis, is personal taste--one person finds Twilight to be really life changing, one person finds it to be idiotic, and thus the debate begins. And, moreover, all this book banning is done in good faith...the people making the decision genuinely believe that they're protecting young readers. It doesn't make the issue any less complicated, but at least it's not rampant malice behind the banning.

Anyway, that's my two cents! If you're interested, I'll post my lesson plan under Flock in my journal...

Re: Agreed!

[dieewigenacht.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's pretty much it, personal taste, you can't expect others to agree with you or to feel the same things, therefore banning based on personal taste (Which is pretty much every banning) is just wrong.

Yes! If course I would be interested in the lesson, it sounds great!

:D