Be Warned Book Lovers! As we speak uptight, inbred groups of uber-conservatives are collecting fuel for their bonfires. That fuel? Your BOOKS.

Not just any books mind you. Specific books. I presume they burn better. ARM YOURSELVES!

This is why Librarians undergo mandatory martial arts training before getting their MLS. They need to defend the books from the book-burning hordes year-round. The rest of us only pay attention during Banned Books Week.

Since 1982 the Librarians have been begging for your assistance defending those books that are being banned from classrooms, blocked from store shelves, and attacked in libraries for:

• Filthiness, (I concur. Books are digusting. Especially the library books in the children’s room. Sticky disease vectors.)
• Deviance, (Lies? Nonconformity?)
• Troubling, (What does this even mean? That the book made you think about things? The horror!)
• Nudity, (Do these people even undress when they bathe?)
• Profanity, (What’s the goddamn problem with a little fucking swearing on occasion?)
• Sexual Situations, (You can’t have it both ways. You want to ban 50 Shades for the sex, and Twilight for the lack thereof. Pick a team!)
  
• Blasphemy, (Have these people heard themselves speak? I studied the bible, and Jesus never said half the crazy shit they make up.)
• Fright, (Gotta blame someone for the fact that your kid is a bed-wetter. Someone other than you and your shitty parenting.)
• Indecency, (Word porn. So much worse the picture porn.)
• Erotic Photographs, (At least the censors can distinguish between titillating nudity and random nakedness.)
• Drug Addiction, (You know where I learned a dozen different ways of processing marijuana? Court paperwork. It’s extremely detailed and provides step-by-step instructions.)
• Disturbance, (What is the distinction between something troubling or disturbing you? I would consider these synonyms. Granted, I read a lot.)
• Racial Themes, (This must be why book publishers refuse to put non-white people on book covers. You can ban a book without even reading it.)
• Racial Offense, (Yeah, there’s nothing quite like the outrage of a privileged white person being forced to study history.)
• Homosexual Lifestyles, (Back in my library-aide days, we went through multiple copies of Heather Has Two Mommies each year. Townies consistently defaced or stole it. Thus, giving the author and publisher more money each time we replaced it. Winning strategy there.)
• Violence, (Um, have you been to the movies recently?)
• Unruly Behavior, (Talking in class? Cutting in line? Either way, we’re talking a direct pipeline to Juvie!)
• Filthy, Filthiness, (Much, much worse than the mere filthiness originally decried in the 80s.)
• Magic and Witchcraft, (Yes, if the children read about magic, they might start doing spells. Good thing all those sexual situations have long-since eradicated virginity from today’s youth.)
• Homosexual Undertones, (Once they discover slash it’ll be all over. Homosexual undertones are everywhere.)
• Anti-Christianity, (Have you people even read the Bible?)
• Obscenity, (Without redeeming social importance.)
• Grammatical Incorrectness, (It’s a delightfully ironic world when teachers and librarians have to defend the bastardized spelling and shorthand of the youngest generation. I love this country.)
• Ethnic Studies, (Oh noes! The children might learned about ethnicity. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!)
• Unsuitability for Age Group. (Hardly our fault your kids are too immature for words. Just have them watch the movie version before their essay is due. That’ll net them at least a C. It’s not like your illiterate spawn were ever going to make the Honor Roll.)

Any book you have ever read that covers any of the above topics is ripe for the burn pile! This last year they’ve targeted some amazing reads. In addition to those perennially challenged classics. (I will never comprehend how anyone could find To Kill a Mockingbird or The Lord of the Rings offensive. JRR Tolkien could have benefited from an editor, but it was hardly offensive.) Go buy two copies of each. And give one to an impressionable child.

I’m particularly amused at the tea-partier’s decision to zero in on Nickel-and-Dimed. Damn reporters with their basic math skills and ability to expose how it is quite literally impossible to live on a minimum wage job in the U.S. Assuming you even have one.

Go forth Book Lovers! Enrage the anti-intellectual mob! Buy some fucking books that make you think about the unholy love between magic-wielding siblings who violently swear at their enemies while time-stealing from their entry-level employment.

Are any of your favorite books on the Banned List? Have any of them been banned in the past? Are any of them at risk of banning? And, if you have children, do you solemnly swear to expose them to said literary nightmare?

About Draconismoi

Draconismoi is a Legal Aid Attorney out on the frozen tundra. After two weeks of -30F, she started telling people she moved to Alaska because she loves the indoors. Right now you'll find her curled up under all the blankets she owns, surrounded by a pile of books. Every so often she emerges from her cave (when there is food) and wonders how she'll justify prolonging this behavior once the temperature rises and the sun returns.

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