Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn. Brave New World. The Call of the Wild. For Whom the Bell Tolls. In Cold Blood. Of Mice and Men. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Kite Runner.
What do these books all have in common? For starters, I studied most of them in school or as it relates to Mark Twain, they fostered my love for reading. I own the bolded ones. The Kite Runner I read as an adult.
What they actually have in common in this instance, is that they are among a list of most commonly challenged books in the United States.
While I don’t believe banning things is the answer – remember my post on owning a copy of Walt Disney’s The Song of the South? – it’s one example among many of why we must not avoid talking about sensitive issues like age appropriateness of books and other lesson content.
I see posts on social media, where groups are discussing the appropriateness of lesson content or books that are available to our youth, who are subjected to having every name in the book thrown at them from homophobic to far-right extremist, for even questioning these materials.
While how we advocate for the issues that are important to us matters and there are of course people who fit these titles, I am willing to wager that a vast majority of those who are either publicly voicing their concerns or who leave these conversations for bedtime banter for fear of being publicly destroyed, are genuinely only curious as to what is appropriate or safe for youth of a specific age.
Public education’s mandate has obviously expanded organically over the years, but have we strayed too far from the basics, and into our familia belief systems?
Are parents partners, or pawns, within their child’s education?