Honestly, I didn't even know we banned books anymore. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8284509.stm "In recent years, And Tango Makes Three - based on a true story and centering on gay penguins in New York's Central Park Zoo - has had the most ban requests." "Other classic literature subjected to complaints include JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee." Now, I've read To Kill a Mockingbird a couple of times, great book and great film. I'm uncertain exactly how anyone could object to that.
This was the American Library Association "Banned Books Week". I am always upset when I find out there is a book on the list that I have not yet read. Not suprisingly, those calling for a ban have never read the books.
I honestly don't get banning books that don't instruct people how to harm others. I believe in freedom of thought.
I just didn't think catcher in the rye was that good. Unless it has something to do with racial tension, I don't know why Mockingbird would be on the list. Gatsby b/c of....what? Honestly, when we can get to the point that 80% of our high-schoolers can actually read those books, maybe there'll be a reason to stop teaching them in school.
Is Catcher in the Rye with the teenage kid who loses it? I can never remember. Gatsby because of class struggle, of course and also probably because he drinks and cavorts with women. I'm grasping for straws here. A statement that is both funny ha-ha and funny tragic.
You guys do realize that most of these books are only banned from elementary and middle school libraries, right? It's not like it's against the law to go buy them in a bookstore...
And that makes it okay? I can stretch a few of the titles out to be "Okay, parents don't want to have to explain to their children that everything isn't Leave it To Beaver" but The Great Gatsby? To Kill A Mockingbird??????? You think most 7th and 8th graders can't handle reading that?
I hadn't heard that. But I've never been one to get hyped for the teen angst, searching for meaning in life, drop-an-f-bomb-to-be-edgy culture. I understand that it was a trendsetter of sorts, and I'm glad that I read it once to understand what people may talk about (like now! ) but just didn't like it much.
Gay penquins would be a blast to hit the town with. Especially if they were like the penquins in Madagascar.
I don't mind the tuxedos but I'd rather not have the shit. I get enough of that with the damn neighbor's damn dog.
One penguin said to another penguin, "you look like you're wearing a tuxedo." The second penguin says, "how do you know I'm not?" A penguin walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "have you seen my father?" and the bartender says, "I don't know, what does he look like?" A penguin walks into a bar and asks the horse tending bar, "What kind of beers do you have on tap?" and the horse says, "Holy shit! A talking penguin!"
Not next door, down the street. The only real asshole on the block. His dog is never tied/fenced. I paid a lot to have new fencing and a new gate built around my garden because I kept having to throw away food crops when the dog (a big dog) got into my back yard and shit all over them. Now the dog shits on the front lawn since it can't get anywhere else. My cats do not like the dog. It also scares my next door neighbor's well behaved little dogs. I do not like the dog either. I shovel the shit into the street in front of the asshole's house. No one on the block likes the dog. Or the asshole.
