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Jan. 23, 2007
With raised eyebrows, the librarian asked, "What school does he go to?"
My oldest child is.... different. In a good way. He's very smart. Very curious. Very literal. Everything is black and white. Gray is not an option. Gray does not exist.
His literature assignment last week was to read selections from The Favorite Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris. You know, Br'er Rabbit? Tar baby? Those stories. But not the Disneyfied version. The real thing. And if you've read any of his stories, you know the dialect can be a little difficult to follow- difficult to read and process.
When I was planning out our week and was looking this book over, I was pretty sure Alek was not going to like this book. He is an excellent speller and is very good at grammar (he gets this from his dad!) and has pointed out errors in publications where there should not be any errors. And like I said, he's very black and white. I didn't think he'd "get" this book.
So we stopped by the library one day to see if they had this book in an audio version. I figured he could follow along and still get to listen to the story without having to decipher the words himself. I was surprised that I could not find any of the Uncle Remus tales on CD or tape. So I asked the librarian if she knew if they had any.
I followed her over to a small section of books, about 4 or 5 maybe, by Joel Chandler Harris, but no audio books. She mentioned that his books are out of print so they're kind of hard to come by. I asked her why and she proceeded to tell me they've been banned.
"Really?" I asked. "My son's reading them in school and I was hoping to find an audio copy so he could follow along with it easier."
"He's reading it in school? What school does he go to?" she quickly asks with eyebrows raised.
"He's homeschooled," was my reply.
And then we got an earful. Not about homeschooling but about the ridiculous practice of banning books. She happened to love Joel Harris's stories as a child, and she said that the Little House books have been banned from schools around here too! (banned because of the negative tone towards Native Americans!) My rebellious children have been reading these lately too. She did say that the libraries in our county do not practice censorship (which is why you can still find some of these books there) but the schools have banned these books. Sad, huh? I LOOOOOOOOOVE the freedom to homeschool!
And the craziest thing about all of this? Alek LOVES this book! The difficult dialect doesn't bother him at all and the stories have totally captured his interest. Goes to show I shouldn't assume anything and give him a little more credit. And now that I think about it, he does like to play with words too. I should scan a paper he wrote about "Common Sense" or was it scents or cents or since.....
Off to read a few Uncle Remus stories myself to see what all the hoopla's about. |
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Jan. 24, 2007 - banned books