When we adopted our daughters they were almost 14 and 11. Upon arrival in California from Russia they knew no English; they couldn't speak it, write it or read it. We soon learned, however, how quickly children, even teens, open up to a second language. How willingly their brains integrate that which is unfamiliar. So, well, unlike the adults who hope to ban the very books that helped teach our daughters to read.
Let me back up. For the girls, slang came first; they learned it at school. At home words tumbled out of their mouths, silly things like Take a chill pill! and What up? complete with Russian accents (kind of adorable!). That was all well and good, but reading had to follow. My husband and I required them to read at least one full hour a day after school and on weekends. They'd slouch over children's books at the table, blond hair splayed across the pages. My husband and I sat with them as they painstakingly sounded out words. They balked and whined and whined some more, but stuck with it. Soon, they were understanding what they read, recognizing the poetry of Maya Angelou's words, laughing at the humor of Mark Twain's.
We'd been told that children who spend any time in orphanages typically have a smaller information fund than those who grow up solely in a home with a family. That their worlds are smaller, their vision more tunnel like. If that's the case, then thank goodness for an array of books that open worlds--and change them.
The girls began to see the authors of the books they read as people, real individuals like themselves, with stories that mattered, stories of their lives that needed to be told and passed down. So, in high school, when they first really grasped on a gut level what Banned Books Week was about, they didn't understand. Why would anyone want to stop another from speaking (or writing) their story? It would be like lying if someone asked if you were adopted.
The teachers explained the paradox of the First Amendment. Freedom of speech for all meant just that: One person had the right to write a book and another person had the right to challenge it right off the library shelves.
"That is so wrong," they said. And in that way only adolescents can express disapproval--with a curl of the lip and a roll of the eyes--they did.
Or course, something deeper, something more personal was going on, something every parent of a teenager sees as their child develops into a young adult. And our daughters were no different. They were just discovering--owning--their own voices, arguing their opinions, expressing themselves. Accents and all. What greater fear do any of us have than being silenced, of not being heard?
Isn't that what the whole concept of banned books sadly symbolizes? The whole notion of challenging-negating-another words so only one side can be heard-even if it's the side we agree with.
When it comes to the teenager (in all of us) there is a certain satisfying irony to book bans and challenges. When you tell a teenager she can't or shouldn't read a certain book, that kid will only want to track that book down and devour it that much quicker.
By the time they graduated high school, they'd each read at least a dozen of the books most frequently challenged in the United States. I keep several of their texts on my bookshelf -complete with pencil notes in the margins and sentences highlighted in pink and green throughout.
Here's their list.
1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Giver by Lois Lowry
4. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
5. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
7. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
8. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
11. Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford.
The American Library Association has declared September 26 to October 3 Banned Books Week, Celebrating the Freedom to Read. Check it out here.
