The book burners

I wonder if in very old times stone tablets were smashed because someone in authority did not like what written on them.

Certainly in the years AD writings have been destroyed, latterly in WWII when Hitler presided over book burnings.

History has proved that if you tell someone they can't read something, they will really want to read what they are told they can't read. In Australia word had gotten out that there was something interesting that a young NYC Jewish man could do with a piece of liver meant for the dinner table. The word was out there and no matter that the book Portnoy's Complaint was a banned book, it was not too hard to find in print in the 70s? I found it a bit boring. Much better for teens was author Paul Zimmerman but I can't remember his book titles and Google doesn't seem to know about him. Maybe I don't have his name correct. Librarian help needed.

Now in the US there is a lot of agitation to remove books from library shelves deemed inappropriate, some because they have gay characters or other reasons where the conservative Christian right book burners deem inappropriate. 

This was written a little while ago. This morning I woke to the news that Roald Dahl's children's  books are being edited to remove offensive words. A couple of expressions I did not like and a couple I had no issue with. 

As you would guess I am against editing books to remove what is offensive now, and perhaps even when the books were written. It is suggested there could be say a sticker applied to the book explaining that some terms within the book may be offensive to some. No doubt it will be in small print somewhere. If we are to go down this path, it needs to be a full page in simple clear language right before the story begins.

If you read Noddy books, Famous Five, Biggles, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer books when you were young, did it make you some kind of prejudiced adult? The word wog here was mostly used for Mediterranean (I can't believe I just spelt that word correctly) immigrants. While it is an offensive word, at times it has been embraced. I once asked my father what wog meant. He told me  W O G was, Wiley Oriental Gentleman.

As a child, even now I can recall non fiction books = boring. Fiction = good reading. Nothing I read as a child influenced my thinking as an adult and it never occurred to me that Noddy and Big Ears could have been in an older man and toy boy same sex relationship.

Fiction censorship is bad. Book publisher Puffin/Penguin, you've done wrong.