or alternatively, Do We Need To Be Told Banned Book Lists Encourage Reading?
Clearly we do. Or I did at least. Hold on, let me backtrack.
My sister reads Twilight. Fair enough, lots of high-school girls do (I hear) and I'm not the sort of person to tell someone what they can and can't do if they know where I sleep. Anyways, she comes home one day and has to explain to my mother that the book has been confiscated because it's "too sexy" and that she needs to go get it from the school. Which my mother... didn't. She hates going up to the school, y'see.
My sister responded by looking up a national banned book list [http://www.adlerbooks.com/banned.html] and deciding to read every single one of them. And she wasn't kidding about it. The next day I found her in the living room reading Animal Farm[footnote]I was so happy I cried[/footnote]. Being...well, a smartass, but let's say "inquisitive"...I asked her why she chose that book.
"It's a book about animals, and it's not that big." she said. "I thought I'd start out easy."
So I shook my head and explained to her that the use of animals was meant to be allegorical, and that the book was (probably) about how Russia turned into a Socialist hellhole. She shrugged it off, telling me again that it was "A book about animals."; a couple days later, she comes into my room almost crying because, "They killed Boxer." So we talked about the book for awhile, and she decided she wanted to read more books by George Orwell; I told her the only other one I knew of[footnote]Barring Homage to Catalona[/footnote] was 1984, which was probably worse. And she read it anyway. And it hasn't stopped there.
Here is a list of books my little sister has read thanks to Twilight (and religious fanatics)
-Animal Farm by George Orwell
-1984 By George Orwell
-The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
-The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
-Forever by Judy Blume
-To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee(currently)
And she's planning on reading The Color Purple next, because it's Mom's favorite movie.
TL,DR: I don't like Twilight, but if it gets people to read To Kill A Mockingbird, I'll hand the book out on the streets. Knowledge is fucking power.
Clearly we do. Or I did at least. Hold on, let me backtrack.
My sister reads Twilight. Fair enough, lots of high-school girls do (I hear) and I'm not the sort of person to tell someone what they can and can't do if they know where I sleep. Anyways, she comes home one day and has to explain to my mother that the book has been confiscated because it's "too sexy" and that she needs to go get it from the school. Which my mother... didn't. She hates going up to the school, y'see.
My sister responded by looking up a national banned book list [http://www.adlerbooks.com/banned.html] and deciding to read every single one of them. And she wasn't kidding about it. The next day I found her in the living room reading Animal Farm[footnote]I was so happy I cried[/footnote]. Being...well, a smartass, but let's say "inquisitive"...I asked her why she chose that book.
"It's a book about animals, and it's not that big." she said. "I thought I'd start out easy."
So I shook my head and explained to her that the use of animals was meant to be allegorical, and that the book was (probably) about how Russia turned into a Socialist hellhole. She shrugged it off, telling me again that it was "A book about animals."; a couple days later, she comes into my room almost crying because, "They killed Boxer." So we talked about the book for awhile, and she decided she wanted to read more books by George Orwell; I told her the only other one I knew of[footnote]Barring Homage to Catalona[/footnote] was 1984, which was probably worse. And she read it anyway. And it hasn't stopped there.
Here is a list of books my little sister has read thanks to Twilight (and religious fanatics)
-Animal Farm by George Orwell
-1984 By George Orwell
-The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
-The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
-Forever by Judy Blume
-To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee(currently)
And she's planning on reading The Color Purple next, because it's Mom's favorite movie.
TL,DR: I don't like Twilight, but if it gets people to read To Kill A Mockingbird, I'll hand the book out on the streets. Knowledge is fucking power.
