Intro Post

Bonnie very kindly invited me to contribute here, so I thought I should probably introduce myself. My name is Laura (Mad Flippess - madly flipping through the pages). As my New Year's Resolution, I decided to read through ALA's top Banned and Challenged Book list, plus several banned and challenged books from other lists. I've given myself one year to finish all the books. I've finished two books so far ("Their Eyes Were Watching God" and "Winnie-The-Pooh").

My blog is here, and Bonnie has kindly agreed to let me type up reviews/little mentions of each book that I go through.

Thanks!

~ L.

More Book Banning News

This time they're after Anne Frank's Diary (again).

Another Banned Book?

Hat tip to one of my favorite bloggers, Radley Balko at The Agitator:

“It’s just not age appropriate,” said Cadmus, adding that this is the first time a book has been removed from classrooms throughout the district.

The book? Click here.

Rabbit, Run by John Updike: Paul's Review

I read somewhere that Updike wrote Rabbit, Run at least partially in response to Kerouac's On the Road. If he did, Rabbit, Run is On the Road's evil twin.

Maybe the fact that I read Kerouac as a teenager, whereas I didn't read Updike until late middle age, accounts for the difference. When I was 15, On the Road filled me with a sense of free-falling exhilaration. As a 60-something adult, Rabbit, Run makes me reach for the nearest bottle of pills, depressed to the point of suicide. But stick with me -- this doesn't mean Rabbit, Run isn't a brilliant, important book.

The characters in On the Road are running, but not from responsibility -- they don't have any responsibilities. Harry Angstrom, the "Rabbit" of the title, has responsibilities and is running from them. He is an immoral craven, a mere coward, the very definition of an anti-hero. And yet you can't help liking him, just a little.

I grew up in a military family, moving every three years to different parts of the USA and Europe. I loved the promise of new horizons and couldn't wait to go to college, grow up, and see what the future may bring. Rabbit saw his future as soon as he opened his infant eyes, because it was all around him, stifling and inescapable. He grows up in a small Pennsylvania town, goes to high school there and is a bit of a basketball hero, and now lives and works within blocks of everything he's ever known. He's married to his high school sweetheart, who's nearing the end of her second pregnancy and has become a sexually unresponsive alcoholic. He's uneducated, has a crap job, isn't going anywhere, and is utterly stuck. Given my background, right there I'm ready to slit my wrists! Is it any wonder Rabbit runs?

But Rabbit only runs from one squalid situation to another, ruining the lives of those he leaves behind. He tries to straighten out, but his despair keeps overwhelming him, and off he runs, over and over. As the book closes, he's on the run yet again. Harry Angstrom, though the word didn't exist then, is a sociopath, a user of people, a loner who deep down doesn't really believe other people exist in the same sense that he himself exists. But he is a sociopath you can at least partially understand, and that is where Updike proves himself a master.

I read Rabbit, Run as part of my personal banned books project. As with the other banned books I'm reading, I try to find out why each individual book was controversial. Updike wrote Rabbit, Run in the late 1950s; it was first published in 1960. In those days, sex was not a subject for open discussion. Lady Chatterly's Lover was still banned in most communities in the USA, the birth control pill did not exist, Vatican II had not yet occurred, girls who got knocked up in high school simply went away to who knows where. So what does Updike decide to write about? Ah, you guessed it.

John Updike is famous for his unashamed, fearless exploration of sexual relationships between men and women. Even today, his writing retains the power to make readers squirm. Secret pimples and warts, smells, secretions, wet spots, the most intimate secret desires, the involuntary noises we make as we come -- all this is grist for Updike's mill. Can you even imagine how shocking his writing must have been in 1960? Indeed, upon it's publication Rabbit, Run was widely banned in the Americas and Europe, and as late as 1986 parents in Medicine Bow, Wyoming demanded its removal from a high school reading list. With the resurgence of right-wing Christianism in the USA, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it is being challenged all over again.

Rabbit, Run is many things -- depressing, embarrassing, thought-provoking -- but above all, it is real. Many books are banned for trivial, merely prudish reasons. This one was banned because it tells powerful truths about the fundamental facts of life.

James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl: Paul's Review

I can already hear you asking why anyone would want to snatch such a cute book from childrens' hands. My god, have you read the thing? A malingering boy, shirking his chores, meets a rain-coated pervert and accepts from him a bag of body parts harvested from endangered species, then uses the illicit gift to create hideous genetic mutations. He runs away with giant insects, murdering his legal guardians in the process. And not one mention of Christ, never mind any hint of remorse, punishment, or eternal damnation. I weep for the souls of children corrupted by this work of Satan.

By the way, I'm Paul. Bonnie graciously invited me to join this blog and cross-post some of my banned book reviews. I normally blog over at Paul's Thing. I began reviewing banned books earlier this year; naturally enough, I'm starting with childrens' books. You can read about my own banned books project here and read some of my other banned book reviews here.

Be(a)ware

"So, in Kentucky at the Montgomery County High School there is an English teacher named Risha Mullins. Mullins does amazing things at her high school to encourage reading and literacy. ... So, an energetic, dedicated professional who is getting positive recognition locally and nationally. Who brings money in, even!  What's a school superintendent to do?  Why, micromanage her classroom, telling her what books she can and cannot use."

You may want to hop over to Liz B's cozy blog and read all of what she posted today about this Kentucky school situation.  Her post is entitled, What Do You Think?

More banned books reviews

Someone else has started a Banned Books Challenge, so check out Trisha's site that she calls Unlock Worlds.  Her site lists books challenged in the 1990s and shows links to reviews by bloggers under each book.  Hers is not indefinite, as ours is here, but ends in 2010.