Myles
Armadillo Pup
Posts: 3
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Post by Myles on Jun 15, 2011 3:21:45 GMT -5
Censorship baffles me. My parents pretty much let me do what I want (except swear, but that died pretty quickly). Dad tried to turn me into a lady, but that...that didn't really take. So when people say that their parents wouldn't "let them" read a book, it just...I'm flabbergasted. Books are banned for a reason. Usually stupid ones. I hate censorship and refuse to do it unless I want to present a certain state of personality. O SNAP I read those two sentences as meaning "stupid books are banned for a reason" and was going to get all Librarian on your ass. But IgetitIgetit. I hatehatehate it when parents come in with their preteen or teenage children and CHOOSE the books for them. "No, Sally, you can't read that book because of XYZ." Usually it is a stupid reason like "Mommy says so" or "Daddy doesn't like that book." LET THEM CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES. They will learn what they like or don't like, you don't need to control their development like that. My parents controlled what I read and did when I was younger, so when I joined the mobile library (a library which visits down the street once a week) I signed up. Went down there with my mum and I picked up a few books and she told me I can't possibly read all of them. She picked one book off a shelf and told me to read that (don't remember what it was now). In the end, I started to like the book until my family mocked me for reading during the weekend and how reading is only for "geeks and nerds who have no life". They'd rather me play on a game console than read.  |
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Post by embonpoint on Jun 15, 2011 12:38:49 GMT -5
Censorship baffles me. My parents pretty much let me do what I want (except swear, but that died pretty quickly). Dad tried to turn me into a lady, but that...that didn't really take. So when people say that their parents wouldn't "let them" read a book, it just...I'm flabbergasted. Books are banned for a reason. Usually stupid ones. I hate censorship and refuse to do it unless I want to present a certain state of personality. Major +1 on the first point. I mean, I find it weird/hard to understand that some parents 'ban' their children from getting piercings and the like, so to not let kids read certain books? What even is that?! |
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Post by inarikins on Jun 15, 2011 14:48:47 GMT -5
I don't think children should read all books (i.e. ones that will scare them) at an early age, but I don't think keeping those scary books from them when they're older is a good thing. I wouldn't let an 8 year old read Stephen King, but I would let a 14 or 15 year old. Some stuff they're just not ready for at a young age that they're more prepared for when they're older and know more about the world and can handle it in a more mature way. I wouldn't try to tell any of my children 'No, you can't ever read that", I would rather say "You can when you're a little older" and then follow through on that.
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Post by devilishlybookish on Jun 15, 2011 14:55:47 GMT -5
I don't think children should read all books (i.e. ones that will scare them) at an early age, but I don't think keeping those scary books from them when they're older is a good thing. I wouldn't let an 8 year old read Stephen King, but I would let a 14 or 15 year old. Some stuff they're just not ready for at a young age that they're more prepared for when they're older and know more about the world and can handle it in a more mature way. I wouldn't try to tell any of my children 'No, you can't ever read that", I would rather say "You can when you're a little older" and then follow through on that. |
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Post by inarikins on Jun 15, 2011 15:04:00 GMT -5
I don't think children should read all books (i.e. ones that will scare them) at an early age, but I don't think keeping those scary books from them when they're older is a good thing. I wouldn't let an 8 year old read Stephen King, but I would let a 14 or 15 year old. Some stuff they're just not ready for at a young age that they're more prepared for when they're older and know more about the world and can handle it in a more mature way. I wouldn't try to tell any of my children 'No, you can't ever read that", I would rather say "You can when you're a little older" and then follow through on that. Yes, exactly. If you can't man up, or don't want to, to explain something to your child, then you shouldn't have children in the first place. It's also possible that the parent never read the book because they were told not to read it. Which results in a circle of stupidity, and that gets books banned for no apparent reason. Somebody before mentioned replacing the 'n-word' in Huck Finn, and while I don't believe it should be used today to describe black people (and I say 'black' because many so-called 'African-Americans' aren't even from Africa or descended from African slaves), that was the word that Mark Twain (totally spaced on his name) used so it should be left in. It was the word used then and if we take that word away, we take the meaning of the book and the story away. |
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Post by devilishlybookish on Jun 15, 2011 15:21:46 GMT -5
The thing that troubles me the most about editing Huck Finn is it's not JUST editing a word: it's editing a part of history just because some uptight people find it unbecoming. Slavery was absolutely terrible and disgusting, but children NEED to be taught about slavery and racism or they're not going to learn the lessons their forefathers did when they finally came to the realizations and slavery and racism were wrong. /Soapbox
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andy
Young Armadillo
Posts: 80
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Post by andy on Jun 16, 2011 7:49:05 GMT -5
The thing that troubles me the most about editing Huck Finn is it's not JUST editing a word: it's editing a part of history just because some uptight people find it unbecoming. Slavery was absolutely terrible and disgusting, but children NEED to be taught about slavery and racism or they're not going to learn the lessons their forefathers did when they finally came to the realizations and slavery and racism were wrong. /Soapbox I'm horrified by the fact that Huckleberry Finn continues to be regarded as a good teaching tool for teaching children about slavery and racism. Children need to be taught about slavery and racism, but they don't need to be taught about it by some dead white man bursting with privilege, they need to hear it from people who actually experienced it and from reliable historical sources not from a novel. Maintaining the white perspective = only valid historical perspective mentality only harms everyone - just as much as insisting on teaching history through fictional texts by people who didn't even participate in the historical events they discuss does. The latter alienates children both from history (which now seems unreal) and literature (which now seems nothing more than a propaganda tool the established order uses to impose its social codes on children and students). And to say that a young person of colour has to be forced to be repeatedly exposed to racial slurs in a text authored by a white person because that will make them learn about racism just doesn't make any sense. |
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Post by inarikins on Jun 16, 2011 12:25:57 GMT -5
I'm horrified by the fact that Huckleberry Finn continues to be regarded as a good teaching tool for teaching children about slavery and racism. Children need to be taught about slavery and racism, but they don't need to be taught about it by some dead white man bursting with privilege, they need to hear it from people who actually experienced it and from reliable historical sources not from a novel. Maintaining the white perspective = only valid historical perspective mentality only harms everyone - just as much as insisting on teaching history through fictional texts by people who didn't even participate in the historical events they discuss does. The latter alienates children both from history (which now seems unreal) and literature (which now seems nothing more than a propaganda tool the established order uses to impose its social codes on children and students). And to say that a young person of colour has to be forced to be repeatedly exposed to racial slurs in a text authored by a white person because that will make them learn about racism just doesn't make any sense. Except during that time, 'nigger' wasn't a slur. It was just what they were called. This fits in with the 'if the parent/teacher doesn't want to explain it' thing. And as for children not learning from 'fictional texts', what do you think most history textbooks are? We don't have time machines, we have to infer what happened based on what he know, which is sometimes very little. That involves sometimes having to make up the story that goes between what we know. (As for people experiencing it... I really doubt there's a single person still alive that lived through the time period that Huckleberry Finn was set in (before the Civil war).) |
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Post by Dodger Thirteen on Jun 16, 2011 12:49:41 GMT -5
O SNAP I read those two sentences as meaning "stupid books are banned for a reason" and was going to get all Librarian on your ass. But IgetitIgetit. I hatehatehate it when parents come in with their preteen or teenage children and CHOOSE the books for them. "No, Sally, you can't read that book because of XYZ." Usually it is a stupid reason like "Mommy says so" or "Daddy doesn't like that book." LET THEM CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES. They will learn what they like or don't like, you don't need to control their development like that. My parents controlled what I read and did when I was younger, so when I joined the mobile library (a library which visits down the street once a week) I signed up. Went down there with my mum and I picked up a few books and she told me I can't possibly read all of them. She picked one book off a shelf and told me to read that (don't remember what it was now). In the end, I started to like the book until my family mocked me for reading during the weekend and how reading is only for "geeks and nerds who have no life". They'd rather me play on a game console than read. That is, sadly, a common opinion. If reading is for geeks, well...so be it. I'm a proud geek, dammit. That being said, I still hated being called "Reader Girl" by my neighbor. He stopped once I smacked him upside the head with a paperback. |
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Post by onlyaworkingtitle on Jun 16, 2011 16:19:47 GMT -5
My parents controlled what I read and did when I was younger, so when I joined the mobile library (a library which visits down the street once a week) I signed up. Went down there with my mum and I picked up a few books and she told me I can't possibly read all of them. She picked one book off a shelf and told me to read that (don't remember what it was now). In the end, I started to like the book until my family mocked me for reading during the weekend and how reading is only for "geeks and nerds who have no life". They'd rather me play on a game console than read. That is, sadly, a common opinion. If reading is for geeks, well...so be it. I'm a proud geek, dammit. That being said, I still hated being called "Reader Girl" by my neighbor. He stopped once I smacked him upside the head with a paperback. Best defense ever! Except for frying pans. Who knew? |
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Post by Dodger Thirteen on Jun 16, 2011 16:39:21 GMT -5
That is, sadly, a common opinion. If reading is for geeks, well...so be it. I'm a proud geek, dammit. That being said, I still hated being called "Reader Girl" by my neighbor. He stopped once I smacked him upside the head with a paperback. Best defense ever! Except for frying pans. Who knew? It's the book's spine. All that glue and paper? Resistance is futile. |
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Post by embonpoint on Jun 16, 2011 17:13:06 GMT -5
Best defense ever! Except for frying pans. Who knew? Tangled?! <333333333333333 |
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Post by onlyaworkingtitle on Jun 16, 2011 17:18:40 GMT -5
Best defense ever! Except for frying pans. Who knew? Tangled?! <333333333333333 My day is incomplete unless I have made a Tangled reference. |
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Post by Eternal Lobster on Jun 16, 2011 18:59:14 GMT -5
That is, sadly, a common opinion. If reading is for geeks, well...so be it. I'm a proud geek, dammit. That being said, I still hated being called "Reader Girl" by my neighbor. He stopped once I smacked him upside the head with a paperback. Best defense ever! Except for frying pans. Who knew? As somebody who has been hit over the head by Dodger with a book, I can vouch for its force. I have to get my glasses fixed because the hinges are all bent up after that occurrence. But I forgave her! And I agree that parents should have some control over what their kids read until they reach a maturity level capable of handling the material. But then again, my parents had no control, and I ventured into the YA and adult sections by myself. I don't think that I was particularly traumatized.... However, when a kid wants to read Harry Potter or Artemis Fowl, please do not be pointing them at Christian fiction like that teen Left Behind series instead. |
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Post by embonpoint on Jun 16, 2011 19:10:18 GMT -5
However, when a kid wants to read Harry Potter or Artemis Fowl, please ... Rather than not letting me, my mother practically forced me to read both those series! Not that I regretted it as I enjoyed them both very much, but I was reluctant to start. |
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