Pass me a banned book, please

Man is very delicate and vulnerable. Not in control of his own mind. Mere suggestion can destroy him utterly or turn him to evil. Ideas are to blame, especially if found in books such as these most frequently banned:

Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" and Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" (profane language). Walker's "The Color Purple," Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five," and Golding's "Lord of the Flies" (sexuality, violence). And inspiration for lawyers who defend the downtrodden, Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" (prejudice, profanity, and violence - the trifecta).

And Harry Potter of course. Lord of the Rings. Magic is bad, very bad. Especially as all children fantasize about it. Denial is the best course; curiosity never seeks the forbidden.

This is Banned Books Week, the Fourth of July for libraries and literature - a plea for liberation, for freedom of written speech.

So much prize-winning literature exploring with brutal, as well as beautiful, honesty the human condition is annually challenged or removed from shelves, banned by fearful censors. For book lovers, they make a great reading list.

Suggest men are imperfect, harm one another, love the wrong people, change after new or painful experiences, doubt themselves and their beliefs (wait, we are allowed different beliefs?), wage war by mistake or ill intent - to deal openly and unreservedly with perceived causes and effects of man's errors and triumphs? How dare these authors. It's not enough simply to criticize, counter, rebut or rebuke; they must be banned!

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Library Association, a tradition since 1982 when libraries saw a surge in attempts to ban in bookstores, schools, and libraries. Each year the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom records hundreds of such attempts, with support of local libraries.

Want to meet a targeted author?

On Monday Sept. 29 at 4 p.m., the Post Falls Library is hosting banned author and Idaho native Chris Crutcher, who has no fewer than four books on Booklist's "Best 100 Books for Teens of the 20th Century." Why banned? Because he deals frankly, and at their own level, with the tough stuff in their world: drugs, sex, abuse, prejudice.

Better to ignore such works and allow officially sanctioned, simple stories with one set of interpretations only. Why give impressionable minds - especially teenagers naturally exploring everything new - ideas which could arm them with greater depth of thought and understanding when facing their own challenges, or witnessing others'? Nope; heads buried in approved sand are much safer. Ignorance is bliss. Just lecture them instead; that always works.

Other banned prize-winners include American classics by Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, more by John Steinbeck, and Toni Morrison. They're in good company with Shakespeare. Children's series, such as "Captain Underpants," also make the hit list, albeit with fair warning by the "Sturgeon [sic] General" who states, "Some material in this book may be considered offensive by people who don't wear underwear."

What is banned comes, goes, and returns with the winds of current culture. Today's "shocker" may quickly become tomorrow's classic, as civilization comes to broader understanding and spiritual growth. Think about what we feared centuries ago, and how those subjects are mainstream now, thanks to deeper understanding. Thanks to more open minds and hearts.

An Atlantic Monthly education columnist spent years working in schools; his March 2013 column describes his deep disturbance about censorship of historical facts. He wrote of one school district where he had worked:

"On one project, a colleague of mine working on a world history course was told not to include the fact that gay people were targeted during the Holocaust... Passages about rats, or alcohol, or love, or death were similarly proscribed. So were passages that depicted, or even mentioned, slavery - and this was for an American history exam."

Should we refrain from offering first-graders books with vocabulary they can't yet understand? Of course. Pretend painful history didn't happen? That leads only to its repetition. Preventing teens, preventing all of us, from exploring issues and risks to which we are exposed in real life deprives man of the resources he needs to be broadly equipped to cope with life, and to fully understand it.

Should we be sensitive about what might offend or disturb? Yes, but we can address that by discussing controversies - by fully exploring them, rather than banning mention of difficult topics which are part of the human experience.

One son's favorite history teacher at CHS made a point of adopting the opposing side of whatever opinions his students expressed, just for the intellectual exercise of exposing them to other arguments and teaching them reasoned, civil debate. This illustrated how successful ideas strengthen when tested; those which fail tend to do so because they were flawed or incomplete.

Yes, life is quite sensitive. To deal with it successfully we must sense it more thoroughly through time. This happens not by avoiding it, but by seeking to learn as much and from as many perspectives as may be possible. We learn by experiences; the experiences we don't have we can learn from others. The experiences not (or not yet) in our lives we can learn from books.

This is the value of great, and banned, literature.

Sholeh Patrick, J.D., is a long-winded columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.