Well that's nice. Always makes me happy to see people actually reading books of substance and not that shit porn fantasy crap that's exposed on the media.
Just don't let her read catcher in the rye. That book is shite
Harry Potter did it better, in my opinion. But yeah, just about any piece of fiction that gets people into reading can be a gateway drug.
I'm not fond of Twilight. It's dual-fold. Aside from the actually offensive stuff in it, I don't hate it. It's just boring. If it wasn't offensive, it'd just be boring. And that's a large part of what's unappealing, it seems like really typical teenage romance drama fair. And what makes it worse is that it's honestly kinda sexist. Edward is an old man stalking a little girl, I don't care what he looks like.
I feel like most people hate Twilight for all the wrong reasons. Here's what I'm talking about.
It's much like the reasons a lot of guys give for why they hate Justin Bieber. Not music talent or anything usually, no, they just hate the idea of girls or women finding a male attractive who isn't their idea of a tough alpha male.
Wait...
The US have banned George Orwell and Mark Twain? And The Scarlet Letter too?
"Yeah, they're great authors and all but we don't want kids to learn about difficult subjects. They could start asking questions after that. QUESTIONS!!!
No honey, no one called people niggers in the 1800's, that's just the author's imagination. What's adultery? Erm... that's when you're an adult, yes, exactly".
Alright everybody. We're going on a magical journey called clicking the given link and actually reading what the webpage says [http://www.adlerbooks.com/banned.html].
When we do so, we can clearly see that the page says (repeat after me)
[HEADING=2]
Books Banned At One Time or Another in the The United States[/HEADING].
Not, "these books are banned and anyone caught reading them will be subjected to punishment", it's just a list of books that at one point or another were banned.
Also, for the most part it's not a federal government ban, more like Soccer Moms got together and got the book banned from their library/school curriculum.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Unrelated to my above point....
EstrogenicMuscle said:
Harry Potter did it better, in my opinion. But yeah, just about any piece of fiction that gets people into reading can be a gateway drug.
I'm not fond of Twilight. It's dual-fold. Aside from the actually offensive stuff in it, I don't hate it. It's just boring. If it wasn't offensive, it'd just be boring. And that's a large part of what's unappealing, it seems like really typical teenage romance drama fair. And what makes it worse is that it's honestly kinda sexist. Edward is an old man stalking a little girl, I don't care what he looks like.
I feel like most people hate Twilight for all the wrong reasons. Here's what I'm talking about.
It's much like the reasons a lot of guys give for why they hate Justin Bieber. Not music talent or anything usually, no, they just hate the idea of girls or women finding a male attractive who isn't their idea of a tough alpha male.
My old school district had no problem with reading books on the banned book list. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is mandatory reading in Junior English, and several other banned books were easily accessible through the school library. No one there had any problem with me reading the highly inappropriate Song of Ice and Fire series.
Although it doesn't really make a difference if a book is on the banned book list. It's just a bunch of overly-religious parents terrified that their kids will get some ideas, there is no actual authority behind it.
read all three twilights, there isn't anything in those books that can be described as sexy the closest it comes is an awkwardly written chapter that ends in the evisceration of a pillow?
i also wasn't under the impression that animal farm was banned anyway? is that just at that school as its a genuinely interesting books that explores soem pretty deep topics in a...shall we say unique manner?
Animal Farm and to kill a mocking bird were required reading at my high school, why the hell would you ban them. I mean God if its about content our required reading in grade 12 had a stripper snorting coke of a dudes dick, in detail. C'mon people
Although maybe if she had a hard time with boxer's death you should try and steer her away from a Clockwork Orange.
Why did they take it off her, I mean it's her property, and it wasn't as if she was walking round announcing it's sexyness, right? That's like confiscating someone's Pokemon game because it's too violent!
My elementary school banned Pokemon cards when I was in like 3rd or 4th grade, and would confiscate them until a parent picked them up because schools are fucking retarded.
Actually, Fifty Shades of Grey would;ve been a better example. the HP books are good and well written, if aimed at a younger audience than most of those who read it. Shades on the other hand is badly written in every sense of the word. Not to mention present-tense writing is fucking hideous to read. But a friend of mine started reading the books not long after they come out, after having spent most of her life saying "Lol, books are for nerds. YOLO!". She finished them ages ago, and now has gone from a book collection of five books (Including Shades trilogy) to seventy nine books. Most of them, she hasn't read yet, but is burning through books. And actually remembering what happens in them and can easily hold a lengthy and deep discussion about them.
You know, there are these things called "states," of which the United States are made of, and each has its own laws concerning education. These are further distinguished within a state by these things called "counties" and "cities" and "towns/townships," which can have their own rules regarding what is allowed to be taught. Within a jurisdiction are several "school districts," and these "school districts" are lead by something called a "board of education," which generally have the most say in the curriculum of a particular school, including which books should be required reading and which can't be read at all.
To say the US has banned George Orwell is at best laughably incorrect and at worst just nation-bashing. I read both 1984 and Huck Finn in high school, the latter being required for pretty much all kids in my school, and the former being in a list of British works that were politically-motivated, one of which needed to have a report written on it. I had already read 1984 on my own time years prior, so I picked it because I'm lazy.
I don't believe that my district specifically banned any books, and definitely nothing political. I even read portions of Mein Kampf in school on my own time, with several teachers in support of getting in the mind of that madman to see things from his perspective.
Edit: Shit, I was forced to read To Kill a Mockingbird in 9th grade as well. I had repressed that memory because of how awful that book was. Between that and Grapes of Wrath and some other shitty book about the post-slavery South, I was fed up with that terrible "hurr suffering" crap. Maybe someone can recall the third book I'm thinking of, though. It involved a small black girl with a father that was basically an indentured servant because of his debt (as was common at the time), and it had something about digging a trench and causing the white kids' bus to break down, and culminated with
the white and black adults working together to stop a fire from burning down all of their farmland.
I hated it, like I do most things about the South, historical and otherwise, but it was probably my least-hated book about the South.
Edit 2: Might as well list the books that I can remember being required reading (or on a list of books where you could choose which book you read) in high school that could be controversial:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Grapes of Wrath
Huck Finn
1984
Lord of the Flies
The Crucible (technically a play)
The Canterbury Tales (not too controversial that I know of, but whatever)
The Diary of Anne Frank (actually read in middle school)
...I thought I was the only human being alive who liked Lord of the Flies in school... Seriously, I had to read it a billion times for different English teachers and still liked it...
OT: As a huge fan of 1984 and Animal Farm: If Twilight is what it takes to get people to read awesome literature, then I'll start handing them out. I'd also recommend (in addition to Catch 22, which I still need to read, and Lord of the Flies) One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. That was an awesome book.
Totally not sure how your sister sat through Scarlet Letter. Maybe it was because she didn't have to write something about every chapter...? Urgh, that was one of my least favorite required reading materials...
So Twilight is like the Internet Explorer of books, that's awesome.
I have to wonder how stuck-up do you have to be to confiscate Twilight, I'd undestand if they did it because she was reading it during class, but because it's too sexy?
Arfonious said:
What totalitarian and almost facist country do you live in that bans Animal Farm, To kill a mocking bird and 1984?
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