It's Banned Books Week, y'all!

Apparently, we're in the middle of Banned Books Week and I had no idea. Oh, well, better late than never, right?

The official Banned Books Week Web site has a list of the top ten books that were challenged in 2008, as well as a really groovy interactive map showing the locations of each challenge. It didn't surprise me to see And Tango Makes Three, the children's book about two male penguins tending an egg together, top the list again this year (because everybody knows that gay penguins are the most dangerous threat to traditional families in America today), but #4 blew my mind: the latest edition of Alvin Schwartz's classic Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

WHAT??? What could anybody possibly have against a book of ghost stories? According to this, the complaints cited "occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, and violence." Oh, for crying out loud! They're GHOST STORIES. By the way, the Scary Stories series was easily one of the most popular books at my middle school book fairs, and I don't think any of my classmates were too badly scarred. I don't think anybody became a Satanist who wasn't headed that direction already. (Kidding!) C'mon, parents. Give your kids a little credit.

Now, that said, I absolutely think that parents should get to veto their kids' reading material just as they control what TV shows their kids watch or what clothes they wear. But there's a big difference between saying "I as a parent don't think my child is ready for this subject matter" and "No one in our community, including adults, should have access to this book."

So go celebrate the three days left in Banned Books Week by supporting your local library or bookstore, and maybe even re- eading Huckleberry Finn or Catcher in the Rye. (Full disclosure: I read Catcher when I was about 16 and I seriously didn't get what the big deal was. What an over-rated self-indulgent pile. Go work in a soup kitchen, Holden Caulfield, if you think your life is so meaningless.)