Banned Books

I am a pervert. I am a degenerate sicko. I'll read anything that isn't nailed down, and have already memorized the ingredients on my Honey Smacks box. (Disney Weebles! Yay! Except that when I was a kid they were egg shaped. Now they're pill shaped. Way to teach kids to just say "no".)

Everyone else has blogged about banned books and linked to the list of the most challenged books of 1991-2000. Every time I read another post about this I am further embarrassed. The only book on that list that I haven't read is the "Mommy why is my penis changing?" book. For obvious reasons I felt that I would be fine to forego it. I like to know what makes people crazy when they read. Put Big O's sticker on the cover of any book and I'll walk away faster than you can say "I hate Faulkner." Put a banned book sticker on the cover and I'll have the spine cracked almost instantly. It's been this way ever since a group of mothers at my school decided that Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret wasn't suitable for 4th graders. I had never even comprehended the idea that there were books you couldn't or shouldn't read. I credit my mother with that. For as strict as my parents were, they let all four of us kids read anything we darn well pleased. So, of course, the fastest way to get little 4th graders interested in a book is to tell them they can't read it. And we all traded the library's one copy around furtively for the rest of that school year. I then went on to read every other book Judy Blume ever wrote. I still laugh when I think about boys and cologne.

I still devour anything that's banned, because I want to know what ideas make other people crazy and why.
I just wish they'd ban some more stuff because I'm out of books to read.