Banned and Challenged Books

I spent my Thursday night at a Banned (and Challenged) Books Reading that I emceed. The event was hosted by my university's English Honor Society. Afterwards, a reporter from our school's student ran newspaper asked me a question:

In your opinion why is it important to read banned books?

Most banned books have a wide audience and are popular, so I personally read banned books for their literary contributions. 


I am a little disappointed in my answer, because in my Methods course of teaching Middle School English, we just finished our assignment on reading and teaching banned and/or challenged books in our classrooms. Our assessment was to write a one page rationale, with a summary, and a letter to parents of our hypothetical class.

My chosen YA novel was Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes.

Kevin Henkes’ Newbery Honor Book, Olive’s Ocean, portrays twelve year-old Martha’s emotional coming of age story that resonates with relatable experiences for early teenagers. The fast paced young adult novel begins with Martha receiving an excerpt of a journal from a classmate, Olive, who tragically died in an accident a month earlier. Though these two girls did not know each other well, Martha discovers shared interests from the single entry of Olive’s journal. Martha and her family leave their Wisconsin home the next day to visit the ocean home of Godbee, Martha’s grandmother, and Olive haunts Martha’s thoughts as she experiences the dynamics of family relationships, the stirrings of teen romance, and the concept of mortality.

For those who haven't heard of this novel, it was on ALA's Top Ten Challenged Books in 2007. Since then it has dropped from the Top 10, but is still considered in the Top 100 of that decade. The reasons it has been challenged include swearing and a scene with sexual references.

For my assignment, I not only read this book, but also extensively researched it. Olive's Ocean has a reading level of 4.8, but the content of dealing with mortality and the reasons of it being banned make the novel more suitable for middle school students than late elementary.

When I read the book, I came across several literary tropes that students can begin understanding in grades six, seven, and eight, while meeting state standards.The literary devices will be easier to access due to the reading level and the characteristics of Martha’s experiences and emotions that middle school students relate to because they deal with similar issues. The issues deemed inappropriate for elementary students can be addressed with middle school students. 

When I answered the question for my school's newspaper reporter, I was trying to encompass as many banned books as I could with my response, and it felt generic but honest. Banned books from The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, and today's popular Hunger Games have all faced challenges because of their content, and yet we continue to find ways to use them to teach in classrooms because of the literary merit or popular success they have seen in our cultures.

So short and sweet was a good answer for a question that seems to carry a lot of weight for a wanna-be English teacher.