Week 3: Censorship

I have never had to deal with a censorship issue in the districts I've worked in, but when I was required to teach some novels that could potentially be an issue, I made sure there was an alternative text that followed a similar theme that the students could read. I've only had a couple of students take up this offer, but only after they started to read the original text and decided that it was not for them.

Every year I take a look at the Challenged Book List to see what changes have been made and it always makes me laugh. This is especially true when looking at some of the reasons why it was added. I think one was Where's Waldo because it depicted nudity. I followed up on this one and I guess that the artist forgot to fill in the clothing on one person. Who would look through that book so closely to even notice something like that?? It is also obvious that these books are taken out of context along with the language. Some of the books were written in a time where some of the words unacceptable today was okay to say then. I completely agree with what the text says about the "censors" and why they do what they do. I'm going to stop talking about this now because it's something I get really steamed about. Which reminds me, I was talking to a teacher where I was subbing at and she offers a lot of the YA books that are said to be "unacceptable" for her students to read, but they have to have their parents sign a permission slip first so she can't get in trouble. The students were excited to read them over their other choices, but were frustrated that we had to go to such extremes so they could have access to the books. Okay, I'm done with my tangent.