I'm with the Banned (Mary Strand)

This month at YA Outside the Lines, we’re supposed to write about either banned books or some other controversial topic, and I’d rather write about banned books than politics.

In case you’re wondering, banned books should NOT be a political topic.

People who ban books aren’t bright. They’re often poor readers who are jealous of people who CAN read. But there are plenty of good people in the world who happen to be poor readers, for any number of reasons, and I’m not talking about them. I’m talking only about people, whether good OR poor readers, who are judgmental and controlling. They also have an agenda. It’s no coincidence that so many banned books are about the experiences of people of color, LGBTQ+, or other groups that these (horrible) people would like to pretend don’t exist.

 

Let’s be clear: there are no good people who ban books.

 

Sure, some books are terrible. I’ve hated them, you’ve hated them. But we all have the right to put them down, throw them across the room, or burn them in a bonfire and roast marshmallows. (Yum.) We don’t have the right to tell OTHERS not to read them. I would boldly go so far as to say that we don’t even have that right when it comes to our own kids.

 

I was the seventh in a family of eight kids, and both of my parents (and most of the kids) were huge readers. So our house was overflowing with books. I still remember two books I read when I was 10, in the summer before fourth grade: The Catcher in the Rye and Summer of ’42. Why? They were around and I wanted something/anything to read, yes, but it also seemed like a mildly wicked thing to do, and I’ve always loved being MILDLY wicked.

The Catcher in the Rye was bizarre, and Holden Caulfield was weird and narcissistic and headed for pointless trouble. Summer of ’42 was the first sexy thing I ever read, and at age 10 I totally wasn’t ready for it, but I loved it. Then and now, I would say that both books were inappropriate for me at that age. I also quickly realized that someone (aka my mom) would yell at me if I were caught reading them, so I did it on the sly.

 

But neither book harmed me. I reread The Catcher in the Rye when I was 16, and I still thought Holden was a load of crap. I even forced myself to reread it five years ago when writing my YA novel Livin’ la Vida Bennet, because my character Lydia Bennet ALSO called it a load of crap. (Go figure.)

 

I realized on each of my rereads that my judgment of the novel as a 10-year-old was dead on. (In my opinion. Don’t throw anything at me, because I’ll likely catch it and throw it back at you, much harder than you threw it, and then won’t you feel silly?)

A selection of banned books from my local B&N.
Seriously great books here!

But I also realized, with that book and other pieces of utter dreck I’ve read over the years, that books don’t harm you. Some will hurt like hell, like when Beth died in Little Women. Some will really piss you off, like when Amy was SUCH a brat in Little Women AND also got Laurie. (I still hate Amy!!!) Some will be stupid or insane or make you wonder how the person ever got published. But they don’t harm you.

 

But people who ban books? They do harm you, and I think they get a kick out of it, too.

 

Let’s ban those people.

 

Mary Strand is the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras and three other novels in the Bennet Sisters YA series. You can find out more about her at marystrand.com.