There's a fantastic little book called "And Tango Makes Three" about true events at a zoo. Two male penguin chicks begin courting and start trying to hatch a rock. When their zookeeper hears that another zoo is looking for a foster couple for an egg that was rejected by its mother, they have the perfect solution. The two male penguins nurture the egg and raise the chick, a female named Tango.
"And Tango Makes Three" is on the banned books list in part because parents were afraid it "encourages children to be gay." The exasperated zookeeper who authored the book said something to the effect that the book no more encourages children to be gay than it encourages them to sleep on rocks or swallow raw fish whole, as penguins do.
People obviously aren't giving their kids enough credit. There are all kinds of things that kids read in books that they're not going to try (as opposed to things they see on TikTok...)
When I was in third grade, someone read our class parts of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. The pictures scared the bejesus out of me... but it did not encourage me to get involved in Satanism.*
*Yes, these are all really reasons why these books have been challenged or banned.
When I was in elementary school I read A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends. I never sprinkled pepper in my hair, pretended to be dying to get out of school, actually died because I didn't get a pony, or tried to take my skin off.
I also read Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry in elementary school and did not start using offensive language.
When I was eleven, I read Julie of the Wolves. I didn't try to get married at 13.
When I was in middle school, I read The Summer of My German Soldier, and when I was in high school I read The Catcher in the Rye. I was not enticed to use "explicit language." (In fact I didn't swear at all until college, and that was due to learning how to use a sewing machine, so, booyah.)
I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school and, yes, you guessed it, I was once again not tempted by foul language.
I read the Harry Potter series in college and did not develop an anti-family, occult, or Satanist viewpoint.
I think it's incredibly rare that you find kids taking these "objectionable" things they're reading about and applying them to their lives just out of the blue. A book is not going to make someone a Satanist. A book is not going to turn someone gay. (If a book could change someone's sexuality, don't you think all the straight romances out there would have affected people already?) And in the instance of language, I think it's VERY unlikely, especially in the age of social media, that The Catcher in the Rye or Huck Finn are going to be a student's first exposure to bad language.
I don't think kids are picking up this book and saying, "Hey here's a fun challenge - hold my root beer!" I think the parents that are worrying about that are being unrealistic, even in the age of TikTok challenges.
But instead of a tide pod challenge or NyQuil challenge, let's try a different challenge. I challenge you to read more banned and challenged books. Buy them, borrow them, and when you're done, donate them. But read them. Challenge others to do the same.
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