Next week is Banned Books Week

Hearing about banned books always shocks me in the way that sticking a knife in a toaster might. For me, the thought that a book, any book, should not be read, shocks me in the way that you would be shocked if your grandmother told you she was an international spy - not in the past, but right now. It's the kind of thing that doesn't even enter into my imagination.
Sure, there's lots of books that I don't like (see my description of She under Books that I'm reading), and other books that I think are really a waste of paper. There are books that bore me to death (I never have finished Moby Dick, though I've tried more than once), or that I don't understand (Gravity's Rainbow) and consequently make my head hurt. But I never doubt that there's someone in the world who loves these books... hell, for these two examples, I know people personally who love them.
But just because I'm disgusted, or bored, or confused by a book, is no reason to try to impose my taste on someone else. So banning books always puzzles me - I can't understand the motivation.
Most challenges to books come from parents who think their kids shouldn't read them.
Yes, there are plenty of books that should only be read in an age-appropriate context - kids have to be ready for the themes of some young adult and adult fiction (no, not "adult" but for-people-over-ten kind of adult fiction).
But some of the challenges go beyond questions of age appropriateness. One, a challenge brought by a mother on behalf of her daughter who asked to ban Huck Finn because of its rampant use of 'nigger' produced an interesting discussion on the part of the court justices who set down their decision. The excerpt follows:

We close this part of our discussion with two observations.First, we view with considerable skepticism charges that read-ing books causes evil conduct. It is all too easy to allegecause-and-effect when one event follows another. Here, forexample, Monteiro alleges that racial harassment, includingverbal insults, increased "as a result of" the assignment ofHuckleberry Finn and A Rose for Emily. The "as a result" linkis wholly unsupported by any factual allegations. If racialharassment indeed increased during the school term, there aremany other more likely causes that all of the interested partiesmight do well to explore. Second, the function of books andother literary materials, as well as of education itself, is tostimulate thought, to explore ideas, to engender intellectualexchanges. Bad ideas should be countered with good ones,not banned by the courts. One of the roles of teachers is toguide students through the difficult process of becoming edu-cated, to help them learn how to discriminate between goodconcepts and bad, to benefit from the errors society has madein the past, to improve their minds and characters. Those whochoose the books and literature that will influence the mindsand hearts of our nation's youth and those who teach youngpeople in our schools bear an awesome responsibility. We canonly encourage them to exercise their authority wisely andwell, and to be sensitive to the needs and concerns of all oftheir students.

I especially like what they say about good and bad ideas. After all, that's what education is all about, isn't it?
Last year, our department fielded a complaint from the parent of a student about an essay written by Edward Said from States asking us not to teach the essay because of controversy surrounding Said, his political beliefs, and questions regarding the validity of his facts. We were told that if we want to teach the piece, we should warn our students and discuss the issue with them in class.
Well of course we should! Just as I warned students about the controversy provoked in Smith's Dogma about his depiction of the church - it produced some interesting talk and I think the controversy made the whole experience much more valuable for the students... at least for that discussion period. Makes me want to use Said's essay simply because it will get students thinking and talking.
You can find a list of the top ten challenged books last year at the ALA website.