I didn’t love Holden on this third reading (age 28). In fact, as I read the first sentence, I groaned. Would I have to put up with this kid’s whining for another 214 pages? But in the end, I couldn’t hate Holden Caulfield, even after 215 pages of whining and complaining. His compassion redeemed him for me, and I’m so grateful I reread his story so I could experience it again from this perspective.

As I read Catcher this time, I was mostly mad at his parents. I kept seeing it from the adult-child relationship perspective. Why on earth are his parents sending him away to a boarding school when he needs some actual attention? He recently lost his brother, who was his best friend, and yet he’s expected to go to classes and successfully pretend that he’s okay with everything. There is no doubt in my mind that his depression is normal. It seems that many of his frustrations could have been eliminated if there were some dialog among the family members. He loved his little sister. He loved his dead brother. Certainly, if his father and mother nurtured that love, rather than packing him off to school, it would have helped him a bit. (I’m not saying parents that send their kids to boarding school don’t love, but in this book, the only emotion we get about Holden’s father is that he’s going to “kill” Holden for getting kicked out of school. Is that really helpful?)

But I admit, as much as I disliked Holden’s complaining and his frustrations, the end made me cry. (highlight for spoiler) To think that all he wanted to do with his life was be one that saved children from falling off a cliff; and that he wanted to rub out all the bad words on the walls, one at a time; and that he wanted to make sure his little sister got her $8 back again: that was touching to me. Holden showed that he really did care about people, despite his best intentions, and he wished he could relate to them. That was the tragedy to him. (end spoiler)

As some people pointed out in a comment the other day, the narration is amazingly believable. I think it is well written. But that believable narrator was probably why it irritated me on this reread. He just was too ornery for me.

Have you ever reread a favorite book only to find you now dislike it?

Have you ever reread a book you disliked only to discover you love it now? (I never thought to ask this before, as I don’t think it’s ever happened to me, but Mary’s comment the other day prompted it.)

I don’t think I’ll ever reread The Catcher in the Rye. I’m seriously sick of Holden Caulfield. But I’ll keep my copy of it. Someday I may hand it to my (older) teenage son to see what he thinks.

Holden in School

In June, J.C. Montgomery of the Biblio Blogazine shared analysis of the current argument that The Catcher in the Rye doesn’t belong in the classroom anymore because kids can’t relate to it. I read her post back in June and it prompted me to reread the book. I love her analysis of the arguments and the comments on that post are intriguing too. If you’ve read Catcher (and especially if you read it for school), go read her post.

Having now reread The Catcher in the Rye, I’d have to agree on a few points. Holden Caulfield’s story is dated. I’m not a teacher of an English class, but I look at Holden’s adventures, and I doubt many kids today can relate to the boarding school framework, the smoking, the drinking, the prostitute, and spending the night at Grand Central Station. Maybe I’m too naïve but I don’t think Holden’s night on the town is something 16-year-old boys are going to get away quite so easily today. I don’t think New York City is recognizable as New York City.

Now, as one of the comments on The Biblio Blogazine points out, it’s not always bad to read books that occur in unfamiliar eras or settings. I agree: we learn something about 1940s New York City.

But I wonder along with those who wrote the articles challenge Catcher in school: does Holden’s night on the town teach teenagers anything about dealing with troubles that might actually help them today in dealing with their own frustrations? I don’t think so. I don’t know what books might do so, but I certainly hope there is something else out there.

Do you think Catcher should be replaced in high school curricula? Can teens relate to it still? What books might better help teens deal with their insecurities? (I don’t read much young adult literature and I can’t think of an adult novel dealing with teen frustrations as this novel does.)

As I said, I enjoyed Catcher when I read it as a teen. I related to his ultimate goodness, not to his cursing and smoking and night on the town. In one of my high school assignments about the book (yes, I still have them all), I wrote:

Though he never admits it, [Holden] does not really want to leave his world to join the adult world. He wants to keep his world as it is for the children, innocent.

Ultimately, I don’t think Holden Caulfield corrupted me (take that, book banners!), and I don’t think the different era bothered me either. I liked Holden Caulfield when I was 16 because he wanted to stay a kid.

Apparently, I wanted to as well.

If you have reviewed The Catcher in the Rye on your blog, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

Other Reviews:

• Booklit
• rob around books
• Mrs. Magoo Reads
• It’s All about Books
• Passion for the Page
• Not Enough Books
• Books of Mee

• Reading Journal (30 Sept): The Gift of Choice (Thoughts on Banned Books Week)
• The Odyssey by Homer: The Story
• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• Comfort Reading
• Kids Corner: Three Novels by E.B. White
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
• The Book That Changed My Life, edited by Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannesson + Giveaway
• A Few Fairy Tale Reviews

“I think that would be a great book for you,” she said. (She, an English post-grad student, knew the book.)

I read it. Yes, there was a troubling scene in it. But the overall message of that book, and the overall impression I received after I closed it, was one that I still haven’t forgotten. I remember feeling strongly that others should read the book to get a sense of what it means to be discriminated against. Besides all that, I left feeling amazed at the power of a life where, even while she feels caged, even when she has been abused, Maya Angelou felt she had a reason to sing. I loved the book.

A few years later, as a junior, my English teacher explained that our next book would be The Catcher in the Rye, but if anyone wanted to select a different book, it would be fine. The mother of one of my friends (incidentally from my church group) told her daughter (whom I’ll call Jane) to read one of the other books. My mom, who literally hates Catcher, told me it was my choice. I read the book, and I loved it. I felt I had a friend in Holden Caulfield. (P.S. I just started rereading it and, um, I am not liking it so much I want to cry! What happened to my friend?)

When I was in high school, I did ban myself from media on one occasion. One of my history classes (I don’t recall which year) watched Schindler’s List and I felt very uncomfortable with it, so I sat in a different room during the three days of history class when they watched it. I don’t think anyone else sat out with me.

Did Jane miss out? Whatever book Jane read was probably good too. Sitting in a different class while we discussed Catcher probably wasn’t fun for her, but in the long run, it probably didn’t matter that her mother chose which book she should read. But then again, I don’t know Jane, so who knows if Holden would have been her friend, too?

Did I miss out on Schindler’s List?, I know I am personally most disturbed by graphics, movies, and anything visual. I never forget them. I suspect my 14- or 15-year-old self would have been quite disturbed. While I know Schindler’s List was probably a very memorable, touching movie to end our unit on the Holocaust, I don’t think I missed anything that I needed at that age.

And then the other question: Was I sidetracked from my conservative upbringing by reading books with “issues”? No. Really, reading Caged Bird was important in my understanding of the world. And I wasn’t going to start smoking and cussing because Holden did. I just related to his teenage angst because I apparently had plenty of my own angst. (P.S. I think this angst is why I dislike him so much now!)

What I loved is the fact that my teachers, while wanting us to read the books, still gave us the ultimate choice. What I love is the fact that my mom, knowing me, allowed me to choose for myself. What I love is that me, knowing me, chose not to watch that movie. It’s all about choice. Even though my mother hated Catcher and thought it be disgusting and pointless (and a little bit without morals), she still let me choose.

Incidentally, my mother is one that challenges books, but maybe not in the way you expect. One year, my brother came home with the following books on his reading list for the year: Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies, A Separate Peace, and The Catcher in the Rye. My mother was furious and went to school to complain. Her complaint? Every single book is written by a white male, about disturbed white teenage boys. Certainly, world literature can provide some more variety!

I personally don’t think it’s wrong to “challenge” book choice, especially those that are a part of the curriculum. Why, exactly, are these particular books required out of all that we have to choose from? Let’s question. But in the end, let’s allow teachers and teenagers to choose which books they will ultimately read. What was okay for me may have been disturbing for Jane.

I guess my Banned Book Week bottom line is that I will be forever grateful to my mother for letting me make my own choices. I personally feel sad to think that some moms are saying “no” to letting their high school-aged kids exercise their own gift of choice. At some point, mothers have to let go.

Of course, as a mom to a toddler, my “letting go” is a little different. This week, I’m realizing that yes, he really does want to read The Little Red Caboose five times every single night.

If I hide it on the top shelf for a few days, would that be banning it? Yes?

Ah, well, I’m starting small. OK, son, let’s go read it again.

Abandoned Books/Finished Reading

Each week, I mention the books I finish or abandon. I may finish Catcher this week!

• Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud (215 pages; nonfiction in comic format). FINISHED! Also was new Library Loot.
• Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (187 pages; fiction). FINISHED! For Heather J.’s October read-along.
• Dracula by Bram Stoker (librivox.org audiobook, 27 segments, about 16 hours total; fiction). FINISHED! For the RIP IV Challenge.
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (audio CD, 7 disks, about 7.5 hours total; children’s fiction). Returned. I was so excited to listen to this. Within about ten seconds after I started, the disk was all garbled and I couldn’t understand it. I decided I don’t have patience to listen to this book, considering Dracula took me over a month to listen to!

Currently Reading

Each week, I list my progress so I can see how my reading compares week to week.

My Books

These are the books I own that I chose to read this week.

• Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (130 read of 190; children’s fiction). I am reading this aloud to my son at a very slow rate.
• The Stories of John Cheever (21 of 61 stories, 820 pages total; fiction/short stories). Part of my Pulitzer Challenge. I read one story this week.
• Our Latter-day Hymns: The Stories and Their Messages by Karen Lynn Davidson (70 read of 350/455 pages; nonfiction). So far, I’ve read the stories of 40 hymns.
• Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter by Seth Lerer (208 read of 330 pages; nonfiction). I read one chapter this week.
• Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (75 read of 220 pages; fiction). For the Banned Books Challenge.

New Library Loot

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.

In addition to Understanding Classics, which I’ve already finished, I also got a few other books.

• Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda (324 pages; nonfiction). I picked this up to get ideas for The Classics Circuit. Make sure you submit your own ideas for future tours!
• Norton Critical Editions: Oliver Twist (fiction/nonfiction). This edition of Oliver Twist has analysis and criticism at the back of it.
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (25 read of 310 pages; children’s fiction). For the RIP IV Challenge. (See note about about garbled audio version.
• The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White (250 pages; children’s fiction).

Noteworthy Notes

I’ve been horrible at making notes of which books you’ve added to my list. So many more books have caught my eye than have been noted. I’m also still a day behind in my Reader.

Fiction

• Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris. Eva at A Striped Armchair liked this, although she thought there were some drawbacks.
• A Time of Angels by Patricia Schonstein. Eva at A Striped Armchair says, “It’s a fable-like story of Jewish emigres and their children in Cape Town post-World War Two.”
• Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. This week, both Eva at A Striped Armchair and Claire at kiss a cloud enjoyed this book.
• The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphey. Nymeth’s review got my attention.
• The Listeners by Gloria Whelan. 5 Minutes for Books and She Is Too Fond of Books both reviewed this picture book about the emancipation proclamation. Sounds great!

Nonfiction

• The London Scene, five essays by Virginia Woolf.  Eva at A Striped Armchair says, “Basically, Woolf walks around various parts of London and writes her impressions. It’s beautiful.”
• Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin. Jenny at Shelf Love and Tara at Books and Cooks both reviewed this cooking memoir this week!
• Creating a World Without Poverty by Muhummad Yunus. Eva at A Striped Armchair recommends it. I still need a few more books for the World Citizen Challenge.
• A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong. Eva at A Striped Armchair liked it. I like myths, so it made the list.

• Reading Journal (23 Sept): The Classics Circuit
• Reading Journal (7 Oct): Books for Every Season
• Reading Journal (28 October): Thoughts on Read-a-thons and Eye Strain
• Reading Journal (July 8): The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Blogging
• Reading Journal (25 November): Unplugged Edition
• Reading Journal (July 1): Summer Reading
• Reading Journal (21 Oct): Victorian Second Helpings + Giveaway of an Abandoned Book
• Reading Journal (22 July): Reading as a Priority
• Reading Journal (10 Feb): The Joy of Reading Slowly
• Reading Journal (4 Nov): Reading Progress and Library Loot

I was interested, then, to read in chapter two (“Ingenuity and Authority”) of Seth Lerer’s Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter that Aesop’s fables differ markedly from generation and generation. The history of Aesop’s fables (the Aesopica), then, illustrates how the translators changed the message of a translated text, especially in literature for children. This prompted a question: How are the authors’ purposes and translators’ objectives subversively included in modern children’s literature, and does it matter?

Fables as Nursery Lessons

Fables, Lerer explains, were (and are) the child’s first “lesson in the arts of the literary imagination” (page 37).

[Fables] take parts for wholes, draw on particulars for generalizations, make mute creatures speak. Their status in the nursery or in the classroom rests not simply on moral or didactic goals, but on their metaphorical enchantment. … the heart of the Aesopic fable is a form of impersonation: of animating the inanimate, of turning abstractions into realities. (page 37, page 38)

Even the most original of the Aesopica had some didactic goals. Lerer explains that “Aesop became a touchstone for an understanding of life itself” (page 38), and Aristophanes, Plato, and other writers often referred to Aesop in their texts as underlying examples of a basic nursery education. Hearing Aesop, then, appears comparable to a modern child learning to sing the ABCs. It was an understood part of growing up.

Aesop as Religious Lessons

Through the centuries, various translations of the Aesopica were made, each drawing on the vernacular language of the age. Following the advent of Christianity, translations of Aesop began to emphasize different aspects: instead of being moral life tales, they became Christian parables with religious undertones. Further, Aesopic texts for children in medieval schools included commentaries to explain correct behavior.

Some of the Aesopica still retained a sense of literacy, and some later translators maintained a sense of “wit” rather than “the heavy hand of the school teacher” (page 46). But the bottom line is this: “Translation is transmission” (page 47). With the advent of the printing press, Aesop was often the first text printed, and the translator could rewrite it as he or she desired.

Do We Need Aesop Today?

Obviously, with the advent of a further children’s literature, children can look anywhere for “metaphorical enchantment.” But when reading Aesop a few months ago, I was surprised to recognize familiar stories and semi-familiar characters.

Lerer also recollects how the Aesopica has been reincorporated into other literature: Hamlet’s conversation with the skull, Yorick, for example, has shadows of Aesop (“scattered fragments of an old tradition,” says Lerer, page 56). Aesop speaks today through such fragments, and the new metaphors are the ones familiar to this generation. You probably have read remnants of the Aesopica without ever picking up a book labeled “Aesop’s Fables.”

Further, I was struck by the brief history Lerer recounted. The translator’s and publisher’s agendas transformed the fables into a new literature, thus calling in to question the authenticity of the “original” fable itself. Each new translation became its own work of literature, designed to meet the needs of the children of that age, as the “translator” deemed appropriate.

For me, this calls to mind, then, the various recent debates about works for children today that are obviously created with an agenda. As I haven’t read some of those debated books, I can’t give an opinion of those. I don’t have answers, only questions, and I think it leads to an interesting discussion.

Looking back on the history of Aesop, I wonder: Does it matter why a work was created for children? What is the value of didactic or even subtle “agenda” literature? Did children in the medieval ages know, care, or notice why and how the Aesop they read was created? Would we, as parents, resent the agenda of the translator, and if so, how can we pay attention to the agenda of the author today?

For the rest of October, I’ll donate 10 cents to World Food Programme for every (non-spam) comment I receive on any post of Rebecca Reads. See most post on Blog Action Day 2008 here. I’m also donating any proceeds (4%) from my Amazon Store.

• Aesop’s Fables with Introduction by G.K. Chesterton
• Speak, Child: The Illiad as the Infancy of Children’s Literature
• Pat the Bunny and Other Interactive Books for Kids
• Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
• Bookworms Carnival: Fairy Tales
• Lullabies
• Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz
• Two Books by Eric Carle
• Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

I didn’t realize that until the week had already begun. As I’m in the middle of a million books right now (see Shelfari widget), I’m not going to start reading another until I finish something!

BiblioFile is giving away a banned book. Visit for more details. I’m supposed to choose one book from the lists that I’d like to read. There are so many I want to read that I didn’t know were banned. Here are some of them I’ve add to my TBR list:

• W.H. Auden: Selected Poems by W. H. Auden
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales by Ibrahim Muhawi
• The Handmaid’s Tale: A Novel by Margaret Atwood
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
• So Far from the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (I’m torn as to whether or not I really want to read this one.)

Out of the Blue also shared a list of banned books. Here are the ones I’ve read and own.

If you have read the whole book, bold it. If you have read part of the book, italicize it. If you own it but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, *** it.

1. The Bible***
2. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
3. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes***
4. The Koran***
5. Arabian Nights***
6. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
7. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift***
8. Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer***
9. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
10. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman***
11. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
12. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
13. Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
14. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
15. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
16. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
17. Dracula by Bram Stoker
18. Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
19. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
20. Essays by Michel de Montaigne
21. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck***
22. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
23. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
24. Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
25. Ulysses by James Joyce***
26. Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
27. Animal Farm by George Orwell
28. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
29. Candide by Voltaire
30. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
31. Analects by Confucius
32. Dubliners by James Joyce
33. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
34. Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway***
35. Red and the Black by Stendhal
36. Das Capital by Karl Marx
37. Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
38. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
39. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
40. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
41. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
42. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
43. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
44. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
45. Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
46. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
47. Diary by Samuel Pepys
48. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
49. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
50. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
51. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
52. Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
53. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
54. Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
55. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
56. Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
57. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
58. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
59. Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
60. Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
61. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
62. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn***
63. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
64. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
65. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
66. Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
67. Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
68. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
69. The Talmud
70. Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
71. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
72. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
73. American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
74. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
75. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
76. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
77. Red Pony by John Steinbeck
78. Popol Vuh
79. Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
80. Satyricon by Petronius
81. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
82. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
83. Black Boy by Richard Wright
84. Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
85. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
86. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
87. Metaphysics by Aristotle
88. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
89. Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
90. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
91. Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
92. Sanctuary by William Faulkner
93. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
94. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
95. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
96. Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
97. General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
98. Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
99. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
100. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
101. Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
102. Émile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
103. Nana by Émile Zola***
104. Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
105. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
106. Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
107. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
108. Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
109. Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
110. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
111. Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
112. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
113. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
114. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
115. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatly Snyder

It seems I own a number of books I haven’t bothered to read … sound familiar?

• Stuart Little Was a Banned Book
• Reading Journal (30 Sept): The Gift of Choice (Thoughts on Banned Books Week)
• BAFAB Week Winner

A few months ago, I wrote a post about Stephen King’s On Writing.  I didn’t like the book. My main argument was that good books should be determined by a good story and good writing; many best-selling authors’ writing is mediocre, so being a best-seller doesn’t necessarily make the authors good. King’s book seemed to explain how to become a best-seller, not how to write well. I said in the post, “I’ve never read any Stephen King, ” but that should have been, “I’ve never read any Stephen King until now,” as I had just read On Writing.

Well, this week I got a furious comment from a reader. She accused me of being unfair since I had not read Stephen King’s books and suggested a book by him that I should read. I responded by clarifying that I had read a book by him: On Writing. I suppose that I should have also added that the writing in On Writing and the excerpts in On Writing from his other books haven’t convinced me of his superior writing ability, and, as I don’t normally like horror in any form, reading the book she recommended wasn’t on my list. But I only wrote the first part.

Her response to me was even angrier. At first, I deleted her second comment because it seemed to be angry hate mail that was somewhat irrelevant to the discussion. However, I usually wait a day before responding to anything that makes me annoyed or mad; I’ve since reinstated the comment because really, it strikes me now as rather amusing.  Besides, she’s calling me a book banner: how can I then censor her comment? Here’s part of it if you don’t want to bounce over there:

…[F]or an author and a book lover, you argue like a book banner.  Don’t bother replying to this, I am removing this site from my bookmarks.

Here’s my question: Where do I sound like a book banner? What is book banning, by those definitions?

In my post, I made it clear that I didn’t like the particular book or the particular author. I have no intention of reading anything else by him. I suggest we all take a more critical view of the books we read, other than “It’s a best-seller.”

Does encouraging better book choice make me a “book banner?” Does saying “Don’t waste your time with this book!” make me a book banner? If so, then any blogger who reviews a book they dislike is a “book banner!”

So what is book banning? Here are some scenarios. I don’t think they’re all book banning.

• A librarian decides not purchase a certain book. (I’d say this isn’t book banning. Libraries can only buy so many books a year!)
• A librarian removes a certain book from circulation after parents complain. (Yes, this seems like book banning. If parents don’t like a book, they shouldn’t read it or they could encourage their children not to read it. That would be parenting a young child, not banning a book; a librarian removing a book would be making it unavailable to others. But even then, parents and children can find the book elsewhere. It’s still not unreadable.)
• Parents ask their young child not to read a certain book. (I’d say this isn’t book banning. Parents have the right to encourage children to read books with situations and morals appropriate for their age, and, most importantly, their maturity level.)
• Parents forbid their older child from reading a certain book. (I think this is border-line book banning. Older kids are able to choose for themselves. Forbidden status just makes it enticing anyway. But, older children will read what they want to read, regardless of parental influence.)

What do you think? What does book banning actually mean? Does not wanting to read Stephen King ever again make me a book banner? Apparently, I need your help, because I didn’t realize I was a book banner!

I concede that I shouldn’t critique authors when I haven’t read everything they’ve written, although I’m sure I’ll keep doing it, as do other bloggers. I suppose it is wrong. But, regardless, I still stand by what I said about Stephen King, and I won’t be reading his horror.

To beth Powers who has made it clear she won’t ever read this (and to anyone else offended by me):  As I don’t normally read or like modern fiction, popular or not, I suspect we have different tastes in books. I occasionally read modern fiction, but it takes a really good one (and especially a good story) for me to really like it. There are literally hundreds of book bloggers out there that love modern genre fiction and review it regularly; I wish you luck in finding a blog better in line with your preferences. I’m sorry Rebecca Reads wasn’t a good match for you!

To other book bloggers: As a sub question, what do you do when you receive “hate mail” comments? Do you leave them untouched? Do you try to respond politely? Do you moderate them or edit them? Would that be “comment banning”? Is that wrong on your own personal webpage?

• Stuart Little Was a Banned Book
• On Writing by Stephen King
• Reading Journal (30 Sept): The Gift of Choice (Thoughts on Banned Books Week)
• Stories by Guy de Maupassant (Introductory Thoughts)
• A Ruined Author?
• Book Blogging Community
• Banned Books Week
• The End of Publishing?
• Why ARCs?
• Golden Legacy by Leonard Marcus

The reasons behind the ban are surprising. Banning Stuart Little was a sort of political battle between two woman in the newly developing field of children’s literature. How many other “bans” on books are simply personal?

If you are interested in children’s literature, banned books, or Stuart Little in particular, check out the article. It made me want to reread Stuart Little and see what the fuss was about.

• What Are Banned Books? (Do I Favor Book Banning?)
• Kids Corner: Three Novels by E.B. White
• The End of Publishing?
• Reading Journal (30 Sept): The Gift of Choice (Thoughts on Banned Books Week)
• Political Reading
• Banned Books Week
• Martel-Harper Challenge (Fourth Quarter 2008)
• Dear D____ Public Library,
• Reading Reflections: A Book Kingdom
• Magazines I Would Love to Read