Literary Misbehavior
July 4, 2025 - دسته
Last year while we were completing my wife's 50 States for 50 years trips, she found the American Library Association's Read These Banned Books book journal. It's a list of 52 books from various genres, authors, and topics with synopses, reasons they were banned, and writing prompts fear each of them.
Quick thoughts from the first half of the year making my way through the list:
- There are a lot of young adult books on the list, which is not my normal reading lane. The most striking point is that the sexual assault, drug and alcohol usage, suicide, and various other issues that people say are inappropriate for the age group are actually happening to that age group every day. Why do people want to make sure that young people don't know how many other people their age are going through the same things and how many people have been through it before?
- The world is moving past the moral compass that prevailed when I was growing up. "Because the Bible says so" is just not enough to convince people.