I doubt this statement is grounded on much more than the guerrilla librarian’s own opinion.

While I applaud this person’s actions with all my heart, banned books are usually the result of the ignorance of a few parents/staff, and this has a way of happening almost exclusively in the US. Case in point — in Poland, a country in which there are crosses in public classrooms and a significant majority of students attend Catholic religion classes held on campus during school hours, the idea that a book would be “banned” from school based on the content is completely unheard of.

Furthermore, I understand that some Catholics could possibly take offense to His Dark Materials trilogy (from what I’ve been told — I haven’t read any of them myself), I really can’t see how any sentient person, religious or not, could argue that the other books on the list are “against Catholicism” in such a manner and to an extent that would result in their being banned. Take a deep breath and think for yourselves, please.

These posts are easy to get riled up about because banning books is bad, teenagers sticking it to the man are good, power to the people etc. I suspect that Cory is smart enough to know it is probably false and even smarter to know that it will be interesting enough for the blog. Case in point, almost two hundred comments on this story.

However, I don’t know how anyone with internet access these days doesn’t start with the basic assumption that everything they read is false until proven otherwise and with multiple sources. Kind of a wikipedia approach to everything.

On the other hand, perhaps if my high school had banned the books rather than assigning them, more students would have read them.

Way to go, young librarian.

This is the exact kind of non-violent social action that really got me going when I was young…

It was required reading at my high school. It was part of the curriculum, even.

catcher in the rye was banned at my high school. i read once, many years ago, that more japanese school kids read catcher in the rye than americans because it’s on their list for their mandatory english language classes but banned from so many american schools.

Oh, come on, don’t tell me you’ve never heard a “friend of a friend’s” problem!

I went to a “christian school” and they did not ban

The Canterbury Tales
The Divine Comedy
Paradise Lost
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Animal Farm

The others either hadn’t been written or I just wasn’t aware of.

Animal Farm was assigned to be read for two separate classes.

I really don’t understand not allowing Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. There is nothing offensive at all in it. I can’t believe it to the point that I doubt how true this story is.

Sometimes kids (she is 14) make things a lot more complicated than they need to, when they feel they are doing something that may be looked down upon by those who hold power over them (teachers, adults, their peers, the internet).

So, it seems just as likely that she was covering her ass, by asking the first question in a coy, round-about way (I’ve got a friend..) to avoid accusations of corruption from imagined (in this case) foes. When there was no backlash, and many helpful and encouraging replies, the next question was asked confidently.

Of course, as a writer she could be just testing the waters for a young rebel character with an interesting pastime.. (she has asked others to vet topics before), but I don’t think that’s incredibly likely.

We can’t say this is a hoax, or not, without further information. On the face of it, it seems like a truly wonderfiul thing, and it would be great if it were true.

Which is not to say that schools do not ban books – they do! Almost always at the request of some parents.

Cory, why not direct these fictional scholarship funds to the Freedom To Read Foundation, which has been the real hero in a decades long battle to bring “banned” material back to public and school library shelves. They’re the main compiler of the lists of books that have been banned, and they fight for the intellectual freedom of young people using both the courts and the power of public opinion – and they’ve had a rough year (with the tragic loss of longtime director Judith Krug – donate in her memory).

Thanks,
BC

“And then one day, nearly two-thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change…”

“Oolan Colluphid’s blockbuster trilogy, ‘Where God Went Wrong’, ‘Some More of God’s Mistakes’, and ‘Who is this God Person, Anyway?’.”

Or the bit about the Babel fish (dis)proving the existence of God.

There’s tons of stuff someone uptight and religious might take offense to.