So glad I don't live in Raleigh. This article doesn't mention it, but the one back in the spring indicated that some of the people challenging Beloved, The Color Purple, and The Chocolate War didn't even have kids in the system--they were homeschooling.
Obviously for some it's more about censoring books in general than "protecting" their own children.
A bang, not a whimper
Two months into L.'s retirement, and I'm finished with the stockpiling of books. No more book purchases! Or at least, no purcha...
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(See also Musee des Beaux Arts ) As far as mental anguish goes, the old painters were no fools. They understood how the mind, the freakiest ...
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When I finished Kevin Brockmeier's A Brief History of the Dead last spring I immediately did a search to see if the Coca-Cola Corp. had...
I was homeschooled from 2nd grade until my junior year of high school and my mom was one of those crazed baptist fundies who wanted to ban all kinds of books / music / thinking, yadayadayada....
ReplyDelete(shiver) I don't think I turned out as she wished. I am a left-winged liberal feminist and I work in a library. Gasp!
I think its strange how my mom is always yammering about the apocolpyse and the coming persecution of christians. Yet she supports things like the patriot act / book banning / free speech restrictions that could just as easily be applied to Christians. They are setting up their own persecutions.
Yikes! Sounds like they think it their duty to "protect" their own children and everyone else's too.
ReplyDeleteI was raised by fundie Baptists, too, but at least mine were yellow dog Democrats, which helped a bit. No one bothered homeschooling back then--teachers were all fundie Baptists as well. My fifth grade teacher said she didn't care if it was against the law and made us pray every day.
ReplyDeleteAmanda, did you sneak around behind your mom's back to read while you were homeschooled? Did you go to public school your last two years of high school or did you have to go to a Christian school?
Yes! I did have to sneak books. Judy Blume was strictly forbidden and my mom use to raid my Plath stash saying that she was "too morbid." I was grounded from reading for 2 weeks once when I got caught reading Blume. My mom boxed up all of my books and I wasn't allowed to read anything but the Bible. I cried and cried.
ReplyDeleteI got away with reading books my mom was unfamiliar with like Catcher in the Rye and Slaughter House Five. Ignorance is Bliss!
I went to public school and went apeshit. Within 3 months of public school I had lost my virginity and was smoking weed and dropping acid. I just didn't know how to interact with other people. I had the academics but I was socially retarded.
I can remember only one time that my mother took a book away from me. She obviously knew that Go Ask Alice was about drugs but not that it was designed to scare kids away from drugs (and it certainly worked on me). I made fun of her because I'd already read it and she gave it back.
ReplyDeleteShe thought I read too much, but she never attempted to ground me from books. That sounds so horrible, Amanda!
I can't think of a single book or comic book I was ever told not to read by my parents. I read and reread every (offensive--Hah) Judy Blume book I ever cared to! :) I did however go to Catholic school. Their form of censorship--they would cross out the books on those Scholastic book orders that they would not order for us! I would still buy them on my own if I wanted to read them! Amanda-I think you are right. When parents force children into certain behaviors--this can backfire.
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