It's Banned Books Week!

How did that ever get past me? It's already Thursday and I've lost all week to the celebration of reading everything I'm not supposed to. Yes, I am a bad little girl. Just tell me there's something I can't read and I'll have it read by tomorrow.

Don't worry, I do have scruples. I mean books that get banned in school systems for stupid reasons. I can't say I'm in a hurry to get my hand on anything by Larry Flint. In fact, his dreck I would ban, but not literature! Not stories!

I have read far more books that offend me from an artistic standpoint, i.e., the plot was dumb, the characters inconsistent or implausible, than I have because I have been offended politically, religiously, or culturally.

In fact, the only book I ever quit reading (I'm one of those hopeful fools that reads a book all the way through even when it's awful, in the hopes that it will somehow redeem itself) was The Exorcist. It scared me that much. Probably, some guilt was working me, because I hid it from my parents, and the book seemed to be able to glow in the dark. I'd put it in my night table, and I'd see the gree glow when it got dark. I ended up carrying it to the garbage container in the garage in the middle of the night.

Of course, I also got caught reading M*A*S*H. Sister Dawn found it in my desk because one of my friends who had older brothers and sisters had it, and I knew I couldn't take it home, either. She busted me and made me take it home. I hid it, too. But that one I did read. Not that I understood it, but I did read it.

I guess the nuns were the first level of censorship...we all managed to read page 37 of Jacqueline Suzanne's Once is Not Enough. I don't know if that counts as never having finished a book, since the object was merely page 37, but Sister Eileen found that one, and proceeded to read page 37, too. I think she was so mortified that she just chose to ignore the episode rather than deal with us. Of course, Sister Eileen had the kind of reputation that required no intervention anyway. We were sufficiently terrified that we finished the term without giving her a reason to discipline us once. I wonder if she planted that book in her next class to get the same results.

Anyway, this banned book site is courtesy of the American Library Association, that keeps a running list of the most banned books. I am pleased to report that out of the top 25 books, I've read 22. That includes the Captain Underpants series. I think they are clever.

If you are as quirky as me, here's the link to the American Library Association's Banned Books site, and my personal favorite, the list.

If you're a real maverick, you can vote for your favorite banned book here.