Another one for the librarians on my flist...

[yakalskovich]

A secret library in a school locker.

At least the censorship gets them reading.


But Canterbury Tales?? Really?

Comments

[open-the-blinds.livejournal.com]

Looking at the list there...that's almost every single book I read in my entire English high school career - the required reading that is! What the hell do those students read, the bible all day?

[yakalskovich]

I have no idea. Autobiographies of popes? Lives of Saints? It seems to be a Catholic school.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

you might like her flickr, at least the last pics and the autobiographical comics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/featherbed/6129088366/in/photostream/

[yakalskovich]

Oh yes, I do, but your post didn't allow comments, so I couldn't say so.

I especially love this one. As I said in my very first post on my German FA blog, 'more room for cats'.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Yeah, I never know if and who sees it and am just glad that I seem to keep finding stuff you might like.

I wanted to warn you to not read the caption or any comments on the Milo and Otis doodle! I cannot stop crying about another one (http://www.flickr.com/photos/featherbed/4893039398/in/set-72057594103736288) and there seem quite a few that trigger me!

[yakalskovich]

Other people's animals dying always make me bawl; it's so sad. I wouldn't call that triggering, though, for me personally.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Yeah, whatever it is called, I cannot stop it, be it in a group with one person just talkling about it or a film. Like absolutely nothing else. But the other pic I warned you about is worse so avoid.

[yakalskovich]

Oh, I'll bawl and move on.-

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

Maybe they banned them to make sure all the kids read them?

[yakalskovich]

Well, if that was their aim, they gloriously succeeded. But I fear there may really be schools that still ban 'Dorian Gray' and 'Catcher in the Rye'.

[idylchild.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that would be the great state of Texas.

[yakalskovich]

Er, what?? The entire state???

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Texas has a gang of right-wing religionists that attack textbooks. This is because Texas is the BIGGEST textbook market. These clowns have seriously damaged science texts with their bullying -- and no one ever hears about it.

I have also read that Georgia public schools don't teach anything earlier than the Civil War -- the excuse being that they don't have time in the School year. I can just imagine how they present the Civil War.

Ignorance is going to destroy America. Deliberate, inculcated ignorance. It's easier to stampede people who don't know what's going on.

[yakalskovich]

From where I am, America does look partially destroyed to me already. And I am sure ignorance had a lot to do with it.

My friend brickling reports that anything she order from the US takes way longer than it used to, at least if it's coming in the mail, as the US Postal Service seems to be touched by the general crumbling of things -- for another example.

[julyflame.livejournal.com]

Huh. Can't be the entire state; my sister's reading Catcher in the Rye right now for her sophomore English class and I'm pretty sure we're still in Texas.

[yakalskovich]

Perhaps it's county by county? Lots of things are, as far as I know.

[julyflame.livejournal.com]

It's more likely to be district by district; but as far as I was aware, there were no banned books at the school libraries in the school district I went to school in, and I was a student volunteer since third grade and spent most of high school doing assistant librarian type stuff, including helping with ordering the books.

[yakalskovich]

I'll have to pass on that one to idylchild, as I've never been to Texas, let alone a school there.

[ceitfianna]

There's a reason one of librarians big holidays is Banned Books Week, its so effective, because challenges and banning can be really stupid.

[yakalskovich]

Yes, it is -- and it makes books that are required reading elsewhere more interesting because kids start asking themselves WHY these books are banned.

And read them voluntarily, in the process.

[bigfluffball.livejournal.com]

My brother did Catcher in the Rye for his GCSE text, without any great enthusiasm. So my parents read it so they could help him, declared that it was a load of rubbish, and got him one of those quick notes versions.

I don't think he did massively well in the exam...

[yakalskovich]

Had he known that it is Banned In Texas, then he might have shown more enthusiasm...

[julyflame.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit confused that both Paradise Lost and the Divine Comedy were on that list, if it was a Catholic school that did it.

[yakalskovich]

They both voice views about heaven and hell that don't exactly rhyme with Catholic dogma. But that school must be terribly strict to see things so narrowly.

[julyflame.livejournal.com]

Aye. The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost were both super-influential when they were first published so it's a bit bizarre for them to be out entirely.

[yakalskovich]

It does -- but I have no reason to disbelieve that poster on ask.com

And even if that was a sock puppet account trying to draw attention to that Banned Book Week Fi mentions up there: - banning books is still bad!

[brickling.livejournal.com]

Gosh! Makes me so glad to live in a country and time where I cannot even imagine banned books. Okay, you will probably not find 'Mein Kampf' in a school library but we are talking about literature here anyway...

[yakalskovich]

Well, Sphinx had to do a presentation in school about Hitler's youth, and impressed her teacher with citing 'Mein Kampf' as primary source. Our grandmother still had a copy in our grandfather's 'poison cabinet' -- for details see linked post.