Prevention Vs. Protection: The Banning of Cautionary Tales

Banning books may not be a new phenomenon; books have been banned for centuries. But the reasons for banning books have changed greatly. There was a time when a story, no matter how gruesome, could be read to children as a cautionary tale. Quite popular in it’s time, the original Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi was little more than a story told to terrify kids in order to teach them not to lie, and to obey their parents. I imagine the Disney movie wouldn’t have be quite so liked if, as in the original, Pinocchio had killed his talking cricket friend shortly after meeting him. So, it would appear times have changed. Afraid their children will be “scared” or “shocked,” parents have begun banning books regardless of how good a moral they have. From books trying to keep kids off drugs or end gang violence, to books warning against the dangers of dystopias, it seems as though no message is good enough to make up for books containing explicit themes or content.

Let’s take a look at Go Ask Alice, whose authorship is listed as “Anonymous.” The book is about a girl who falls in with the wrong crowd, and is slipped acid at a party. After that, her life becomes a downward spiral of drug use, premarital sex, running away from home, rape, and even prostitution. One would think a book written by a Mormon woman for the purposes of scaring children away from drugs would be hailed as great by protective parents. The book was a smash hit, and endured the test of time well. When I was in middle school it was all the rage among girls, some 30 years after it was originally published. It even managed to get people to overlook the fact that while it claims to be the real diary of an adolescent girl the copyright notice clearly states that the book is a work of fiction, and that any likeness to real characters, places, events, etcetera is purely coincidental. So why would a parent not encourage their child to read it, let alone seek to have it banned from schools? The answer is almost amusing: it contains sex, and (this one is a shocker, so strap yourself in) explicit drug use. Let me just allow that to sink in for a minute…