Banned Books Week: The Giver

Yesterday I wrote a post about one of the books I read for Banned Books Week:  And Tango Makes Three.  You can see the post here.

Photo courtesy of goodreads.com

The other book I read for BBW was The Giver, by Lois Lowry.  I can't believe I had never read it before!  Well, it was published in 1993, which was a part of my "reading isn't cool" phase.  So that makes sense.  


The Giver is a story about a boy, Jonas, who lives in a utopian society.  Let me add a little note - I think this story is more about a negative utopia than a dystopia, because with dystopias, the community is bad.  I mean really bad.  With this story, the community is overwhelmingly good, but it has bad elements, therefore a negative utopia.  Anyway, Jonas's community is very structured.  People apply for spouses, and once given one, can apply for a child after a few years.  Only two children per couple - one male and one female.  The children are lumped into groups by their age, or rather by their year of birth.  Each year they have a ceremony, where the children become a year older, and are given new responsibilities, like volunteer hours.  Jonas is an Eleven, and is about to be Assigned to a job during the ceremony when he becomes a Twelve.  But Jonas's Assignment is totally different than any of the others.  


I don't want to get into too much detail here, because I'm not a fan of spoilers.  But there are some interesting things going on in this story, and in Jonas's community.  Some really great things and some really awful things.  So I can kind of see why someone would want to ban this book.  Don't get me wrong - I think banning books is wrong, and I think you should decide for yourself and for your own kids what you should or shouldn't read.  But this book speaks about some things that I don't even know how I feel about.  I mean, I know how I feel about some of it, but other things I'm a bit undecided.  So I can see how someone might think this is unsuited to the age group.  Unlike with And Tango Makes Three, the American Library Association didn't have a list of reasons why The Giver was challenged.  But I'm assuming that "unsuited to age group" was one of them.  (I know what a couple of the other reasons probably were, but I won't discuss them because they'll be spoilery.)


However, let me just say that I think that books like this help to get children thinking about certain issues.  I think that as long as they think critically about them - and that the teachers who might include these kinds of books in their curriculum try to touch on all sides of the issues, rather than just touting their own beliefs, or the beliefs that are included in the book - that kids will get a lot out of them.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Giver.  I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads.  I love dystopias/negative utopias/speculative fiction.  So the story had me right at the beginning.  I'm unsure of the ending, and I know there were lots of symbols in the story, but I'd have to go back and read it again to really understand all of them.  The only (kind of) bad thing about reading this book - I had "My Name is Jonas" by Weezer in my head for a couple of days.  Not a bad song to have in your head, but still.  (And now you guys have it in your heads, too.  Ha!) But I loved the story and I think that I'll definitely want my son to read it when he gets to be a teenager (or earlier, depending on his maturity level).

Banned Books Week: And Tango Makes Three

I finished my two books for Banned Books Week earlier than I thought, so now I'll have more than one post in a day.  It's an Autumn miracle!


I read And Tango Makes Three and The Giver for Banned Books Week.  I'll start with And Tango Makes Three, and then I'll do a separate post on The Giver.

Photo courtesy of Goodreads.com

And Tango Makes Three is a children's picture book by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, and is illustrated by Henry Cole.  It's a true story about two male penguins who loved each other and together they raised a baby penguin from egg to birth and beyond.  It was published in 2005 and has been on the American Library Association's Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books List for each year beginning with 2006, and every year it has been in the number one slot, except for 2009, when it fell to number two.  The reasons that this book has been challenged have been listed on ALA's website as "unsuited to age group," "sexism," "anti-ethnic," "religious viewpoint," "anti-family," and "homosexuality."  Let's take these one-by-one, shall we?  Oy, this is going to turn into one of my infamous soapbox rants.  


So we'll start off with "unsuited to age group."  I'm not sure what the exact target age is for this book, but it's a children's picture book, so we'll say, um, birth to 8 and be generous?  I mean, kids don't actually read until they're 4 or 5 (unless parents do that Baby Can Read thing, which is a topic for another post, I think), but parents read to them.  And although I don't really read anything other than board books to my two-year-old son (he tears up the pages otherwise), many parents read these books to kids at all early ages, even while they're in the womb.  And by the time kids are 7 or 8 they're on to chapter books, I think.  I'm not sure exactly how this goes.  Give me a few years and I'll see what happens with my own son.  But anyway, it's a book for kids.  And yes, I can see how sexuality is not a subject that you really want to teach your kids until they're older.  But you can teach them about love, right?  Kids are taught about boys and girls liking each other, and thinking the other is cute; all that stuff is taught without a thought at a young age.  All that simply has to be said to teach homosexuality at a young age is that some boys like boys and some girls like girls.  Lots of people talk about the horrors of children learning about homosexuality in schools at a young age, and they always seem to think that this kind of talk has to include information about sex itself.  Sex doesn't come into the teaching of heterosexuality at a young age, so why should it come into the conversation when talking about homosexuality?  Besides, this book says nothing about the reproductive cycle except that the male and female penguin couples had babies of their own and Roy and Silo (the two male penguins) didn't, so their keeper gave them an egg to care for when it couldn't be cared for by its own parents.  I don't think this book is unsuited for the age group at all.


Next, "sexism."  How in the world is this sexist?  No, really, someone read this book and tell me how it's sexist.  I really don't know how it could be considered sexist.


As for "anti-ethnic," I really don't know what they're going with here.  There were people of all colors illustrated in this book as going to the zoo to see the animals.  I mean, there was only one type of penguin in the book, chinstrap penguins, but surely these people aren't claiming that it was anti-ethnic because there was only one kind of penguin represented?  I really don't know what anti-ethnic means, either.  But I found a funny blog post while looking this up:  And Tango Makes Three: anti-ethnic penguins?  They don't seem to know what it means, either.


"Religious viewpoint" is the next reason that this book has been challenged.  Now, does that mean that the book has an offensive religious viewpoint, or that the person who is challenging the book is saying that it is offensive to their own religious viewpoint?  It has to be the latter, because this book has no mention of religion in it whatsoever.  So I guess this person is basically saying that it has homosexuality in it, which is against their religious viewpoint.  Newsflash, people.  It's a free country.  And freedom of religion is one of the major freedoms in America.  Freedom to be whichever religion you wish, or to have no religion at all.  Your religion does not make the rules of this country.  No religion does.  So therefore, a book that does not go along with your religious viewpoint isn't going to be banned for that reason.  Sorry.


Moving on to "anti-family."  I wrote a whole post on this a year ago, aptly called Soapbox Rant.  Basically I talked about how many politicians talk about "family values" as if their opponents, or people in the other political party (they're Republicans talking about Democrats, mostly) don't have any type of family values.  It's quite ridiculous.  Just because some people don't limit a "family" to a marriage of one man and one woman and their biological children doesn't mean they don't have a sense of what family is, and it definitely doesn't mean that they don't have morals.  And Tango Makes Three is all about family.  It's about a not-so-typical penguin family, but the overwhelming, blatant theme in the book is family.  So this reason for challenging the book does not make sense at all.


And finally, we have "homosexuality."  Yep.  They're homosexual penguins.  So this reason makes sense, but I still think it's wrong.  First of all, banning books is wrong.  Decide for yourself what you want to read to your children.  If you don't like it, don't read it, and don't let your kids read it.  Second of all, the fact that something contains homosexuality does not make it bad.  You disagree with homosexuality?  I think you're going to have to get over it, because it's not going away.

Deep breath, rant over.  And Tango Makes Three is a sweet story about family and love.  The illustrations are cute, and the story itself is warm and fuzzy.  The fact that it is a true story makes it all the more wonderful.  I, for one, think we need more books like this for children, and I will definitely be reading it to my son (once he gets over that whole tearing-book-pages thing).

Pottermore and Banned Books Week

Photo courtesy of hp-lexicon.org

Now that all of the 1 million beta testers have been sent their Pottermore welcome emails, I thought I'd reveal what I can't believe I hadn't already posted on here:  I'm in Ravenclaw!!!  I was so excited, even though I thought that I would be in Hufflepuff.  I mean, most of the online tests that I've taken have given me the highest compatibility percentage in Hufflepuff, with Ravenclaw being the 2nd highest percentage.  But those tests weren't made by J.K. Rowling herself, so I consider the Pottermore sorting quiz to be official.


I mean, I knew I wasn't going to be in Slytherin.  And I was pretty darn sure that I was too much of a wuss to be in Gryffindor.  But I figured I'd be in Hufflepuff, and also hoped that either it or Ravenclaw would become my house.  But now that I've been sorted, my allegiance is to Ravenclaw all the way!  Now I want a Ravenclaw key chain, a scarf, a pin for my computer bag; basically anything that I can find in blue and bronze.


My husband, by the way, who I assumed to be in Gryffindor, was sorted into Slytherin!  But I know that he's one of the good guys in green, and would never turn to dark magic!  ;)  (Yes, I realize how big of a dork I'm being right now...)


In other news, it's Banned Books Week!  In honor of BBW, I'm reading The Giver by Lois Lowry, and I hope to pick up And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson at my local library in the next couple of days.  I'll write a post on these books once I'm finished with them, which will hopefully be by Saturday, which is the last day of Banned Books Week.


So what house do you call home in Pottermore?  Are you happy with where you were sorted? And if you're participating in Banned Books Week, what are you reading?