Everybody Naked?

As a follow-up to my recent post Let's All Get Naked!, it seems that French booksellers decided to do just that to protest against the attempted censorship of the children's book Tous A Poil.

Good for them!

Let's all get naked!

Actually, let's not all get naked here in England while the cold winds blow and the flood waters rise. In France, though, in summer on the beach it sounds like a fun idea.

A charming French book for children called Tous à Poil, which translates as "Everyone (gets) Naked", is causing rather a stir  because it shows people doing just that. Its drawings of naked bodies aren't like the photos you see everywhere that are so heavily airbrushed and photoshopped that everyone looks like a Barbie doll. Instead they show children a more realistic picture of what people look like under their clothes and that sounds like a good idea to me. 

Interestingly, since politicians have denounced it on French tv, sales have rocketed. Nice work, French MPs!

Would I take it in to work? (At an after-school club for primary age children.) Probably not. I'd be too worried about the reaction from teachers and parents, which is a shame. Would I read it to my grandchildren (if I had any)? Almost certainly yes. What about you?

The end of banned books

It's the end of banned books week and I'm left feeling a bit bemused. Most of the books that count as "banned" were challenged in schools or libraries, usually unsuccessfully. A few of the books that were challenged were required reading in schools, and I have to say that forcing a child to read a book that is too adult for him or her seems rather cruel to me. As censorship goes, this isn't very successful.

Then you have the entirely different case of Operation Dark Heart. The author collaborated closely with the US Department of the Army in writing the book but this wasn't good enough. He was summoned to meet with the US Department of Defense, after which existing copies of the book were destroyed and a new version was produced with some of the information removed. The publishers claim that this isn't censorship and I'm left wondering what they think it is. But it was in the interests of national security so that's all right then.

I wonder if there are some books that should be banned, such as books inciting hatred or telling you how to make a bomb. My guess is that with the internet nothing can stay banned or secret for long but the Operation Dark Heart case suggests that some people at least think otherwise.

Surprising Banned Books

The Huffington Post has an article today on The 11 Most Surprising Banned Books. The one that surprised me the most was the dictionary. Apparently, it was banned from an elementary school for its definition of oral sex. I'd have thought that you'd have to be able to read pretty well to look that one up, and know what you're looking for too.

I'm really not keen on the idea of banning books. I certainly wouldn't have banned Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time

Because it's a tale of the battle of good and evil, many were concerned it was making a religious argument they didn't want their children exposed to.

I'm not in favour of religious indoctrination, being an atheist, but the battle of good and evil is the main theme of so many wonderful stories, including Lord of the Rings and most of Dr Who! For goodness sake, why do people feel so sure that they know what's right for everyone else?

It's always interesting to see who has banned what and why. Are there any books you would ban? Or would you always let readers decide for themselves?

Banned Books Week 2008

I've just found out it's Banned Books Week.

I don't much like censorship. I don't like other people telling me what is or isn't fit for me to read. I only have to hear that a book is banned to want to read it.

I remember reading Lady Chatterley's Lover when I was a teenager. Well, when I say I read it, I mean that I skipped through it looking for naughty bits. I suspect it would seem much tamer to me if I reread it now.

Banned Books

When I was a kid, I read Lady Chatterley's Lover. Well, not all of it. Just the 'dirty bits'. I wasn't particularly impressed and it didn't inspire in me a life-long love of D.H. Lawrence.

I think it illustrates a point though. People are more interested in works that are forbidden. So when something is censored it becomes more desirable.

Does that mean that we should forbid anyone under 18 to read Shakespeare, on the basis that we'll have hosts of youngsters with fake IDs trying to get hold of plays by the bard? Maybe not, although the idea has a certain appeal.