Book Banning

[Sciwoman]

Oh, poor thing. She had to read some books in school that she didn't like. Boo fucking hoo. Not everyone is going to like every book. She should put on her big girl panties and deal with it.

Granted, there are people who don't like to read and people who have strong preferences for certain types of books. However, people should be exposed to a wide variety of genres and school is a good time to do that. After reading some of the comments, I do have agree that the way the book is taught can have a big influence on how a child perceives a book.

[Minimalist]

Perhaps she's too difficult and boring. What would she prefer, fucking picture books?

She should visit the G. W. Bush presidential library.

[thesummerqueen]

I had a WONDERFUL teacher in my freshman year who really was responsible for my love of Shakespeare. She was so enthusiastic about it. We had to do a tragedy every year, and we started with Romeo and Juliet. It was fantastic. By my senior year, I had another wonderful teacher who introduced Eliot and Keats. I was enamored.

We acted scenes of books and poems out in the classrooms. We dressed in costumes. My senior prof likened Keats to a chocolate raspberry cake, so I made one and we ate it while we discussed The Eve of St. Agnes. We had debates about Hamlet and Jane Eyre. We listened to sexy recitations of Neruda's poetry in both Spanish and English. We discussed the bleakness of war and shell shock and existentialism before reading Eliot. There were contests for memorization. We saw the Simpson's version of the Raven, just for laughs. The IB curriculum exposed us to things from Africa and Latin America, Canada and India. We heard Beowulf told in the original Old English. When someone asked how Shakespeare was relevant, a teacher dug up a VERY entertaining and funny lecture from a college professor who went around telling students exactly how much of culture was changed by The Bard. It was eye-opening. It was educational. I lapped it up.

That's how teaching should be.

[The Grand Nudger]

Had to do an entire year of nothing but shakespeare for one of the educational programs I was involved in (no..not drama). Before that, I couldn't have cared less, after, it's hard not to quote the bard. Aaron of Titus Andronicus remains the absolute model for villainy to me (and for villains you can root for), now and forever. Unrepentant, to the very end. Iago, by comparison, was a sniveling bitch.

(asked if he was sorry for what he had done, his "heinous deeds", as they slipped the noose around his neck)

"Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day- and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse-
Wherein I did not some notorious ill;
As kill a man, or else devise his death;
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;
Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;
Set deadly enmity between two friends;
Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends' door
Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters
'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly;
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more."

Brilliantly and eternally evil.

[thesummerqueen]

Shit - if you couldn't appreciate Irish folklore and Shakespeare, then Gargoyles, one of the best cartoons to come out on TV, would be an incomprehensible mess.

[8BitAtheist]

Damn now I want to watch Gargoyles, I haven't seen that show since I was in my single digits I believe.

Also, I love to read, even when the content has that things I don't actually agree with it can still be entertaining.

The most I can say I prefer is fiction, but that's only because I haven't read a lot of non-fiction but other than that i have no genre preference and I read just about anything. I read the twilight saga, just to see what it was about. All of the books were horrendous. I read God, No! recently and it was entertaining. I'm reading "Men Who Hate Woman" (Swedish translated title) (Starts with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) Saga right now I'm on the third book and I started less than ago week on the first. I plan to read some classics later on next week.

There's only been one book that I absolutely could not get into no matter what and it was "Crime and Punishment" and that was years ago so I plan on trying again.

Anyway, point being, the lady is full of shit.

[The Grand Nudger]

Two Years Before the Mast. Excellent read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Years_Before_the_Mast

[Justtristo]

Why cant these people advocating banning and burning books Twilight instead, hell you might be able to get a reasonable level of public support for it.

[The Grand Nudger]

I've got a few suggestions for the book burning pile.

[Justtristo]

I've got a few suggestions for the book burning pile.

Please list them I am curious to know, the whole Twilight and Left Behind series would be my first choice.