Censorship
When I was younger, mom didn't like 0r approve of some of the books I would read. Namely, anything by VC Andrews and Stephen King. So I would hide them from her and read the sordid tales of incest and brutality and back-hills living in secret, under the covers, on the bus.Mom didn't like the sickness contained in the books. She felt that if you read poison, you'll poison yourself. I can't remember her exact phrase, but it was something like 'If you put poison in, you'll get poison out,' or some such semi-religious phrase. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I've always read above my grade level - so when I was in 6th grade, I was reading books from the adult section of the library. Who knows all the reasons.
Anyway, to appease her, I read other things as well. You know - 'normal' teenage stories. Lots of Judy Blume, Ellen Conford, Francine Pascal (Sweet Valley High, dontcha know). Stories where the good girl gets the good guy and everything wraps up nice and neatly in the end, with all getting what they deserve. Nothing too terrible ever happens and if it does, it all ends well. The books where mom locks her kids in the attic was obviously - to me, anyway - the type of fiction that isn't based on real life. Sure, shit like that really does happen, but it's the exception rather than the rule. At least, that's how it seems to my white-bred, middle-class being. But the books about relationships and friendships and familial issues, THOSE, that's real life. That's what we all deal with. That's what we all identify with and take to heart and struggle with. I think mom tried to censor the wrong kind of books.
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