Forbidden and Required Books

IN ELEVENTH GRADE i read "The Scarlet Letter" by hawthorne, because i was required to, not only by the rather priggish teacher, but also, i believe, by the local school board, the sate, and, for all i know, the president and the pope.

i ended up halfway liking the book,; i should probably read it again now, forty years later, i might get more out of it. it seemed(s) to me that hawthorne didn't come down harshly enough on the puritans who tortured poor hester prynne, the main stream christian vicious american colonial hypoctites. or maybe he did, maybe he craftily and subtley invited the readers to draw their own conclusion, based on facts. like i said, maybe i otta read it again.

the adult world of officialdom still makes damned sure that students read ecactly what is required of them, whatever is deemed requireful by the adult world of officialdom. scarelt letter is still probably on the list. shakespeare, certainly. et al. great, beyond question, all the requirees.

But, oh how i, in  eleventh grade, longed to read arthur c clarke, and isaac asimov, and maybe a little heinlein. we were forbidden to read salinger's masterpiece "the catcher in the rye", so of course we all read it. during class changes, when all lockers were open, you could walk down the hall and see the little red paperback edition in everyone's locker, save for the illiterate set, which fortunately were relatively few.

which brings to mind; does the adult world of officialdom ever by chance make a mistake in its high and mighty requiring and forbidding of books? Remember, these are the people who, for the most part, believe that god actually speaks to us in books. how much can they know?

maybe, just maybe, all children should be told that reading is fun, reading is a blast, read whatever you want , whenever you want, and, well, here's a few "suggestions". and the older they get, the fewer the suggestions. we can all spend our lives all suggesting books to each other, rather than the few requiring certain books, and forbidding others, for the many.

i have a pleasant fantasy of high school students all over america, members of the class of oh thirteen, carrying "cather in the rye" in their backpacks into their respective buildings, then, at the first opportunity, whipping them out and absorbing themselves therein. Yes, the red paperback edition, just for tradition sake.

would they all be expelled, or the books confiscated?