Daniel's comments (member since Jun 20, 2008)

Daniel's comments from the Banned Books group.

I think Lolita is a great discussion-starting book, because people who have never read it often express their surprise at how the sexuality is almost completely absent from the book - beyond tone and implication - and find it to be rather funny.

And Catcher in the Rye is a must-add ...

NO, don't take any away - in fact, add some if anything. I hate this trend of lowering standards to make numbers look better ... it doesn't make us a more informed society. I think much of the secret to getting kids turned on to some of these books is in how it is taught ... I remember I had teacher that made us watch Star Wars while we read the Odyssey and we discussed the parallels - and it was great because so many other students participated. Another instance I can think of is trying to help my younger brother get through Romeo and Juliet, being taught by his give-the-same-list-of-facts-every-year-and-make-sure-they-know-the-plot, very boring high school teacher ... I just used small, stupid things to engage him (like showing him how SO much of Romeo and Juliet is just very old d*ck jokes), and it worked so much better than the kind of bland, this-is-a-classic-so-you-should-read-it teaching many kids suffer through. Looking back, I feel fortunate to have read so many books in grade/high school - even ones I might still find boring. I think this is the case because so many of the "classics" or great books have their importance beyond the book itself - often they are more like representatives of enormous social change and/or tensions of their time, brought to life and demonstrating that social climate so much more vividly than most other things can.

Just because someone asked: the book in question was a book by a local preacher. A local patron wanted it removed from the library, was refused, then complained. After this, Palin asked about how the librarian would respond to removing books, and there was never any challenge made on the book.

I get the impression this "inquiry" was a confrontational butting of heads by two very willed women; furthermore, it looks more like Palin was simply hoping the librarian would remove the book to please the initial patron who was complaining. She got turned down, then got overzealous and tried to have the librarian dismissed. Good for the librarian who wouldn't back down.

First, bad form on the part of Palin for trying to flex her muscle on the librarian, and for wanting to just "wish" a book out of the library to please someone. But just to be clear, it wasn't Palin hunting down and trying to ban books out of her own self-righteousness or moral imperative - it was responding to someone else's. But she should know better than to enable it.

Just to clarify, because I'm neurotic sometimes, Silverstein wasn't THE original cartoonist for Playboy, he was ONE of several, some who came before him (most notably Jack Cole, also known for Plastic Man).