Celebrating Banned Books Week

It’s Banned Books Week!

And I thought it was a good time to give thanks to the parents and grandparents who raised me for letting me grow up reading whatever I wanted.  Thank you!  I do not have children and I would never presume to tell anyone how to raise theirs, but I’d just like to say: this worked for me.  I am a firm believer that books are self-censoring.  TV and movies are another story—they wash over you without giving you the chance to object—but if a child isn’t ready for a book, they put it down.

I heard the editor Hadley Dyer speak at the Word on the Street festival in Toronto over the weekend, and she said something quite profound.  She was talking about market trends in children’s and YA lit, and someone asked her why teen literature had so many “issues,” why people seemed to think teens wanted to read about cutting, anorexia and other difficult topics.  Her answer: “It’s funny that no one asks why adults want to read about difficult subjects.  Teens want to read a variety of books about a variety of subjects because they want to learn about the human condition, just like the rest of us.”

To celebrate Banned Books Week, I will be reading one of the most controversial books ever written, Lolia by Vladimir Nabokov. Because I can.

What are you reading for Banned Books Week?