T W E N T Y - F I V E | Censorship

Today's topic is supposed to be one where we switch blogs with another person and essentially do a guest post.  Well, not many of my friends blog, and the ones that do don't really have the free time to write a guest post for my little bloggity blog blog.  So today, I figured I'd use this day as a FREE post for a topic that's so near and dear to my heart.  

In the news recently, here in Dallas, there has been a news article about some parents who successful got seven books banned from high school classrooms in Highland Park.  

The seven books are:

An Abundance of Katherines - John Green
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian* - Sherman Alexie
The Art of Racing in the Rain* - Garth Stein
The Glass Castle: A Memoir* - Jeannette Walls
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
The Working Poor: Invisible in America - David K. Shipler

Now, I can't profess to say that I have read all seven of these books, because I haven't.  I've only read three of them.  I put an * beside the books I have read.  I have added the remaining four to my to be read list.  The reason for the books being banned isn't clear except that parents were uncomfortable with references to abortion, rape, and various sex scenes in the books.  All of which I can completely understand, but instead of banning the books, why don't we use these books to open up the lines of communication with children?  This is a high school for crying out loud.  These kids have been exposed to ALL of these things in one fashion or another, probably from watching television.  Um, there are ABC Family shows that reference sex and pregnancy in them.  

I just don't understand.

So then I pulled up another article that discusses the top 15 children's books that have been banned.  The Dairy of Anne Frank was one of them.  This quick discussion happened on Facebook, and some people understand the need/want to ban The Diary of Anne Frank due to the "depressing nature" of the book. However, I firmly believe that 100% of the Holocaust is depressing.  The way the Jewish people were treated is horrible.  The fact that so many lives were lost is awful.  BUT - it's history.  And I feel like we owe it to every single one of them to read their stories, TELL their stories to future generations, because most of them didn't make it through the concentration camps to tell their stories.  If we don't learn history, we're doomed to repeat it.  

I think this is a story that deserves to be told.