In class we discussed how Edgar Mint contains material that should consider it a "challenged book." So I decided to research what makes a book challenged. I went to the official American Library Association website:
Over the past eight years, American libraries were faced with 3,736 challenges.
* 1,225 challenges due to “sexually explicit” material;
* 1,008 challenges due to “offensive language”;
* 720 challenges due to material deemed “unsuited to age group”;
* 458 challenges due to “violence”
* 269 challenges due to “homosexuality”; and
* 103 materials were challenged because they were “anti-family,”
* 233 were challenged because of their “religious viewpoints.”
Approximately 31% were in classrooms.
Love Medicine
Detail of beadwork from an Ojibwe medicine pouch
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I don't know if you remember when Chris Crutcher came to StM a few years back, but his books are VERY controversial. In fact Whale Talk, which was the MS summer reading for 8th grade caused such a furor here that we changed it. So parents get upset that books have "real" experiences in them and "real" language, they protest and cause a hassle for teachers and administrators, and kids have the opportunities for compelling reading taken away. Then we as Americans wonder why reading is on the decline. Did you know that there is a direct correlation between reading and voting? Most people who vote, are active in their local communities, and who volunteer also read classics. The correlation is between classics and good citizenship, not "Twilight and good citizenship. Interesting, huh?
BEHOLD THE GREAT WALL OF TEXT: I don't think that reading classic literature would make people more politically or socially active, I think that it comes more from the personality of the individual reader. The main thing that comes to mind for me with the whole "read more books" mentality is Ray Bradbury. As a big fan of his works, I can say that he definitely fits into that category, but I do have issues with this mentality. Being of this new era of internets and free, accessible information, books are, more or less, becoming obsolete. I don't think paper novels will ever disappear, in fact, I highly doubt that will ever occur, but we are definitely entering a new era of information, and with this new medium, I think that we'll begin to see greater stories being told in literary ways that aren't in literature. While I'm skeptical about this advancement in television, one industry that is particularly interesting is the video game industry, where you can actually control a character and, if the game allows it, make decisions for the character. This allows you to practically create your own story. While games simply do not yet have the technology to do so, we could see an age where stories were told not through paper, but through game. While Bradbury would disagree, I think of it more or less as the advent of something bigger. I think of it as John Keats who accused Newton of destroying the rainbow, it's that sort of conservative mentality that I dislike. That's partially why I think reading is on a decline; video games have been given a spurned reputation because of their seemingly mindlessness, but as the industry evolves, storylines are becoming deeper, and like I said, it can become a new medium of storytelling, one more immersive than anything I could think of before. Sure, there will always be games that are just shooters that are meant to be played for fun, but then there are games like Heavy Rain that are completely storyline based. And while Heavy Rain isn't perfect, and plenty of games have done what it's done a little better, it does show the possibilities of video games, and with the growing popularity of the industry, I'm interested in how the industry will change in the next 20 years. Think about this: around fifteen years ago, a game where you played as a pixelated plumber was created where your objective was to get mushrooms and jump to the highest part of the flag at the end of the level, now we have games about where you're an assassin in Renaissance Italy, or a teenager trying to find Truth. And while these aren't the most mind-blowing plots, they definitely harness potential in the industry. But then again, it's sort of growing into the same oligarchy of sorts of the music industry where the mediocre games that are meant to be played for fun will be hyped greatly outshine the little gems that are more interesting. That's where I think most of our creativity and interest is going, though. It goes into video games, the internet, photoshops, lolcats, etc.. Is it a bad thing? If unfocused, yes, but if it can be harnessed to be used for a singular purpose, well, that'd be an interesting world to see indeed. In short, while I agree with the importance of reading, I believe more in the changing of the times, and I don't think that books, per se (used it correctly, boo ya), will help create better people. But if classics are not learned, well, George Santayana once said, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it," and if that's true, then we'll have to learn it eventually. Well, that's my two blog points of the week, and I got +1 debate skill, +10 rant, and -45 minutes of my life. <3 Shiloh.
Shiloh, I think that the study I referred to made a correlation between voting and reading because of the ideas that "readers" are exposed to. Issues of social justice, equality, how young people are treated and idealism in general pervade literature. The idea that people who are exposed to those ideas and who are able to, through literature, extend their minds and hearts into others' and thus find EMPATHY and then take this empathy to the polls is reasonable.
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