Banned Book Week
By Margaret Travis

Banned Book Week was Sept. 29 — Oct. 6 this year. I’m not much of an activist. I don’t get involved in causes. I go about my business, doing what I have to do. I help my clients, take my kids to school and hope that they aren’t too screwed up when I get through with them.

But. According to the people who want to ban books, I AM A REBEL!

I’m surprised at the number of “challenged” books that I’ve read. I’ve not read a whole lot that are on the “most challenged” list this year, but overall I’m on a roll.

Teenaged sex books seem to have hit a nerve. Heaven forbid we should teach our children about sex. Or their bodies. Let’s not give them tools to deal with all these feelings they may be having but not quite knowing what to do about them. Let’s not have any avenues to discuss these things with our children. Cause heaven knows they would NEVER have any of these ideas All.On.Their.Own.

“Of Mice and Men” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” have fallen from the list of top ten “challenged” books this year. Of the top 100, I’ve probably read 75 percent of them. If I’d known when I was a teenager there was so much sex and violence and prurient stuff in them, I’d have paid more attention. Instead, as a teenager, I called them GOD.AWFUL. BORING and moved to something else. Or I bought the Cliff Notes and tried to bluff. Or I watched the movie and tried to wing it in class. I mean seriously, if I’d known there was so much sex and violence and dirty words in some of these books, I really would have tried harder to read the ones I didn’t read.

Some I totally fail to understand. “To Kill A Mockingbird” is my all-time favorite book. It tells a poignant story and is beautifully written. Harper Lee can turn a phrase in a way I can only dream about. It is the story I wish I’d written, if Harper Lee hadn’t already written it. And someone (actually several someones) want to ban it, pulling it from the library. Keep other people from reading it. You mean everyone doesn’t keep a copy of it sitting on their bedside?

And the kids books? They too baffle me.

The Series of Unfortunate Events books are there. As are the Harry Potter Books. Both series are great kids books.

Captain Underpants has caught the wrath of someone. Do you suppose it’s because it’s got the word underpants, right in the title? I have read the Captain Underpants series of books. I own the Captain Underpants series of books.

I will admit I haven’t yet read the “Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People,” but I might just run out and buy it this afternoon. Because while my daughter has outgrown the Captain Underpants series of books, my son is just entering Dave Pilkey’s realm of influence.

Those books are funny. In that stupid, little kid, grossed out sort of way that kids like so well. They talk about poop and farts and wedgies and boogers. George and Harold made my daughter laugh out loud. They have this stupid thing in it called “Flip ‑ O ‑ Rama” where you put your hand on one page and turn the other page and it looks like things are moving; usually doing something inappropriate, punching someone or poking someone in the eye.

It’s stupid. It’s exaggerated. The kids know it’s stupid and exaggerated. They know it’s making fun of school and their parents and their teachers and rules and that it ISN’T REAL. That’s the whole point.

I have a child who doesn’t read much. Her reading skills are poor. Her comprehension is worse. What she needs to do is practice her reading. And the last thing in the world she wants to do is actually read. She would rather - talk on the phone, play with her brother, watch TV, play on the computer or poke herself in the eye with a fork - than read a book.

But she read the Captain Underpants series of books. And I don’t care how inappropriate someone finds them or their talk of boogers and poop and wedgies, I’d pay my weight in gold for something else that she will volunteer to read.

Ms. Travis practices in Oklahoma City.