Sense or Censorship - Today's Banned Books.

Some books change your life forever. To Kill a Mockingbird transformed mine. It woke me up to the issue of racial inequality, something that hadn't been a part of my world until then.

I felt an instant kinship with the two children at the heart of the novel, six-year-old Scout and her older brother Jem. Set in the state of Alabama during the 1930s, their innocence is slowly dismantled as their father, Atticus Finch, takes on the legal challenge of defending an African American against a charge of rape. Such a case had never been won at that time. 

The accused, Tom Robinson, is innocent as much in character as in the crime and both children become outraged when the overwhelming evidence proving his innocence is ignored.

This Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Harper Lee was required reading for my Grade 10 English class. Our teacher paired it with a showing of the Oscar-winning film. Gregory Peck embodied the heart and soul of Atticus Finch and Mary Badham portrayed the curiosity and attitude of six-year-old Scout exactly as I had imagined it.


Written with warmth and humor, To Kill a Mockingbird emphasizes courage, tolerance and decries prejudice. So it was with surprise that I found out this novel had a long history of being banned in many schools across North America.

In 2002, Brian Bauld wrote, "I have been teaching English to Nova Scotian students from Grade 7 to Grade 12 for 28 years. Without doubt, the book that has gained the most favour with my students has been To Kill a Mockingbird. From the thousands of students who have had the privilege to read Harper Lee's one-book-wonder, I would be hard pressed to think of any but the most obtuse and inane who could interpret it as racist."


For myself and many others, the words obtuse and inane best describe those that have implemented the ban of this book.

In 2001, the City Library of Chicago began a program designed to encourage literacy. Endorsed by mayor Richard Daley and city officials, the One Book, One Chicago initiative picked To Kill a Mockingbird as its first book for the entire city to read. By the way, Chicago has a robust black population. How anyone could think that this book hurts African Americans is beyond comprehension.

"That this book is still being taught, despite ongoing resistance, is a credit to those principals and teachers who have placed quality above quackery," Bauld aptly states. "My experience is that students are drawn naturally to stories of justice, mercy, fairness, selflessness and honour, especially when handled by great artists."


There have been numerous "classics" banned through the ages; Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, 1984, Ulysses and ironically Fahrenheit 451, a novel that reveals a future culture where books are banned and burned.

Even the Bible has been banned.

But I was surprised to learn that Mark Twain's great American novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has not just been banned but is actually undergoing editing changes. NewSouth Books plans to release a version of this classic with the "n" word (nigger) taken out (used 219 times) and replaced with "slave." They will also remove the word "injun," a colloquial reference to Native Americans.


It's important to remember that in using these words, Twain, like Harper Lee, was critiquing racism not endorsing it.

One can only imagine what Twain himself would say about this edit of Huck Finn. Known for his acerbic wit and speaking his mind, one of Twain's famous quotes, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education," could well be used in this instance.


A few years ago, I was writing a feature article on modern cowboys for a national magazine. I added some historical context to the piece and wrote about my favorite childhood game, "Cowboys and Indians." The editor said this phrase was not politically correct and could hurt a whole people group. It would have to be changed to read "Cowboys and First Nations people." Well, I had NEVER played cowboys and First Nations people, and when I pointed out it was not meant to be derogatory but merely historically representative, she refused to budge. That section was edited out.

Peter Messent, author of The Cambridge Introduction to Mark Twain is very critical of editing this American classic. He writes, "As Twain himself said, 'The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.' 


"I respect the motivation of Alan Gribben, the senior Twain scholar who is responsible for the new edition, and who wishes to bring the book back into easy classroom use, believing 'that a significant number of school teachers, college instructors and general readers will welcome the option of an edition of Twain's...novels that spares the reader from a racial slur that never seems to lose its vitriol.'

"But it's exactly that vitriol and its unacceptable nature that Twain intended to capture in the book as it stands. Perhaps this is not a book for younger readers. Perhaps it is a book that needs careful handling by teachers at high school and even university level as they put it in its larger discursive context, explain how the irony works, and the enormous harm that racist language can do. But to tamper with the author's words because of the sensibilities of present-day readers is unacceptable. The minute you do this, the minute this stops being the book that Twain wrote."

Do you feel books like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be banned or edited to remove inflammatory words - like nigger?

Have we become so overly sensitive to some terms that we cannot judge their context in classic literature?


Any English instructors out there? Do you take these edits as a slight to your teaching capabilities - that you may not be able to present the discursive context in a way your students would comprehend? Would you rather teach an edited version of these novels?

Famous First Paragraphs

Some are just one sentence. Others take over a page. They can be provocative, compelling or a stumbling block. They're supposed to set the tone for the rest of the story. First paragraphs should flow freely and immediately connect the reader to the book. But captivating first paragraphs are tough to write.

In a recent series of blogs, Nathan Bransford, a former literary agent, held The 4th Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge. He received over 1500 entries. Of these, six were chosen, and the writers were able to submit portions of their manuscripts to a well-known agent. High stakes for unknown writers!

Reading through these paragraphs made me dig through my favorite books and look at how they started. So, which of these books can you name by their first paragraph alone?

     1. It was a dark and stormy night.

I kid you not! This isn't Snoopy typing away here. Someone actually used that line and this book became an award-winner (and rightfully so, after it was rejected over 50 times). It was required reading for Grade Six students in the Fraser Valley for decades, and maybe still is. Just to be 'nice' (which is a word that totally describes my personality), I will give you the second paragraph.

     1. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraith-like shadows that raced along the ground.



I was always a pyromaniac and loved playing with matches, but I had nothing on the main character of this classic novel.

     2. It was a pleasure to burn.
         It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this giant python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and the lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind dark with burning.

I'm Canadian and love home-grown literature. This was my favorite novel from my first year at university.

     3. Here was the least common denominator of nature, the skeleton requirements simply, of land and sky - Saskatchewan prairie. It lay wide around the town, stretching tan to the far line of the sky, shimmering under the June sun and waiting for the unfailing visitation of wind, gentle at first, barely stroking the long grasses and giving them life; later, a long hot gusting that would lift the black topsoil and pile it in barrow pits along the roads, or in deep banks against the fences.

This is a novel I only discovered recently. I have since read it again and find it haunting in a beautiful way. The opening paragraph gives it away...

     4. My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. This was before kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the daily mail. It was back when people believed things like that didn't happen.




I'm still astounded that this classic was written 10 years before I was born.

     5. If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told you anything pretty personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all - I'm not saying that - but they're also touchy as hell...



It's amazing how even the first sentence of some classics, prepare you for what lies ahead...

     6. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

In this novel about predestination and fatalism, my favorite line is "Listen, Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."

     7. All this happened, more or less. The war parts anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I've changed all the names.

And now for somthing complitly difernt:

•  progris riport 1 martch 3

      Dr Strauss says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me from now on. I dont no why but he says its importint so they will see if they can use me. I hope they use me becaus Miss Kinnian says mabye they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Charlie Gordon I werk in Donners bakery where Mr Donner gives me 11 dollers a week and bred or cake if I want. I am 32 yeres old and next munth is my brithday. I tolld dr Strauss and perfesser Nemur I cant rite good but he says it dont matter he says I shud  rite just like I talk and like I rite compushishens in Miss Kinnians class at the beekmin collidge center for retarted adults where I go to lern 3 times a week on my time off. Dr Strauss says to rite a lot evrything I think and evrything that happins to me but I cant think anymor because I have nothing to rite so I wll close for today...yrs truly Charlie Gordon.