Chet Reads & Writes*

Today’s blog post was inspired by a couple of things. The pushing factor was an article I stumbled upon this morning at Truth Out, Banning a Book Near You. It’s definitely worth the time to read it. Secondly I recently saw a note on Facebook that asked you to check whether or not you had ever read the books on the list. Every book on the list had been banned at some point in time, tune in at the end of the blog for my list. The final pushing note we will get to later.

Children today are learning to read earlier than ever before. This excites me to no end. I’ve been reading for most of my life now. In elementary school I was never interested in playing sports or anything, but reading was always a great thing to do. Of course I loved some good time off for recess during the day, but I was a reading machine. Case in point- in second grade our teacher implemented a reading chart, and for every book we read we got a sticker. My teacher had to get a second poster board to house my continuous stream of stickers.

Since then my interests have grown from Dinosaurs! to more interesting books as The Lord of The Flies, my favorite, just so you know. I’m also a huge fan of Vonnegut, Palahniuk, Bradbury, Salinger, Steinbeck, Lee, Orwell and I could go on for a while. The shame is that many of my favorite authors have had at least one of their books challenged, if not banned.

Even though I grew up in a fairly conservative area of Texas we never had any kind of book challenges occur. Although I think our Literature teachers were sometimes afraid to teach certain books, from fear of parental outcry. I assure you nothing is worse in a small town than an upset, loud-mouthed parent. My parents never said that I couldn’t read something. They both seemed to appreciate that I enjoyed reading, and were happy letting me read whatever I wanted.

I’ve learned a lot through reading. I’ve had quite a few eye opening experiences through the books I love. What have you learned from reading? Were you allowed to read anything you wanted growing up? Do you even like to read?

If you’ve never taken the time to read at least one of the books below, please go to your local library, grab a copy, and prepare to have an experience like the man at the bottom.

Here’s a link to the 2008-2009 Challenged Books List.

Have You Read These?

If it’s bold I’ve read it.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Ulysses by James Joyce
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
1984 by George Orwell
Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Native Son by Richard Wright
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Warning: This should happen to you.