Quote:
Originally Posted by anamardoll
Can Mythbusters weigh in on this? I have to say that, in my opinion, if a teenager wasn't likely to read the class text before it was banned, the act of banning it may not make that much of a difference.
Teenagers are about as complex as adults and they don't immediately do what is forbidden like good (bad?) little robots; nor are they stupid. Many of them may (correctly) divine this situation as being a power contest between adults over things they themselves may not care about. For instance, trying to ban evolution being taught in certain schools didn't suddenly cause our national science scores to leap, you know?
I mean, "teenager's wishlist"? I'm pretty sure Slaughterhouse Five and Huck Finn aren't being read more than Harry Potter and Twilight.  |
Initially I agreed with you, but as I started to think about it, I realized I had been drawn to books because they were banned.
When I was a teenager I was inspired to read
Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger because it had been banned. However, I wasn't drawn to other books in a similar manner, or so I thought when I first read your question. As a teenager I had known
Gulliver’s Travels and
Candide were once banned for political reasons, but I had no desire to read them and I still don't. I also knew that
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and
To Kill a Mockingbird were all banned because they tackled race issues. As a teen I wasn't interested in reading these books-- BUT I have read them as an adult. I also find it sad they now get banned from schools because they contain racist words. As a teen the books on sex didn't hold much appeal either, but as an adult I have
Lolita by Nabokov on my 'to read' list. I also tried reading
Ulysses as an adult (Big Fail). I can't say that I read the Harry Potter books because religious nuts tried to get them banned, but I did read
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman because of the religious objections, and
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie is also on my "to read" list (although
Midnight's Children is a little higher on that list). Lastly, I also want to read
American Psycho by Bret Ellis, and primarily just because of the controversy around the book (it's been banned in several countries).
So, after thinking about it, the fact that a book gets banned or is surrounded by controversy is a draw I think.