My daughter just finished “Charlotte’s Web.” She didn’t like it. Something about realising the fate of farm pigs.
“They were going to turn Wilbur into bacon, mummy!” she cried… as I was cooking her weekend breakfast. Awkward.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard of kids not enjoying the children’s classic by EB White, but there’s a reason it’s on most year four book lists. It’s an old-school classic about friendship, overcoming adversity, and just being kind to others.
But there’s one school where the classic novel won’t be being read in classrooms – because it has been put on a very special shelf in their school library. A shelf full of “banned” controversial reads.
A person recently took to Reddit to share an image they spotted at their local school filled with “warning” signs.
“School library has a display of banned and challenged books. Here’s a small sample,” they wrote along with some images of the notes displayed on the bookshelf.
“Warning: Satanic,” the sign read about J.R.R Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series.
“Pro-communist, sexually explicit,” was given for George Orwell’s “1984.”
Even “Where’s Wally” was sin-binned to the shelf for “nudity, unsuited for age group.”
And yes, amongst them was also “Charlotte’s Web” which was labelled with “Blasphemous, unnatural, inappropriate subject matter for children.”
I mean, ask my daughter and she’d probably agree that “Charlotte’s Web” deserves to be there, but the parents out there were puzzled as to why some of the best books we read as kids were now off-limits for some.
Are these books really ban-worthy?
Many people in the thread were left confused over the banned shelf and went to heavily defend some of the classics.
“Calling a book ‘satanic’ is so insanely ignorant and theocratic,” one person ranted.
“Lol at 1984 and Animal Farm communism,” another added.
And another screamed: “What the hell is wrong with Charlotte’s Web?!”
Someone following along gave a bit more context about why the books might’ve been placed there with the various warnings. They wrote:
“LOTR was never actually banned or even challenged. Somebody at a church book burn tossed it in and called it satanic.
1984 has been banned many times over the decades since its release by a variety of governments.
Bad Kitty for President was challenged in a single elementary school for an “implied expletive.”
Animal Farm was never banned or even challenged in the U.S.
Charlotte’s Web is a weird one, as there’s no primary sources for the ban, only a single attribution to an unnamed school in Kansas over some alleged religious implication regarding the talking animals.
Where’s Waldo (or Where’s Wally) was banned because of a boob somebody spotted.”
Is this a clever tactic to encourage readers?
Meanwhile, others claimed this was a clever tactic used by the school to encourage kids to read, rather than a message about the specific titles and their subject matter.
“This is a common strategy used by teachers and libraries to purposefully draw in young people – it’s actually proven to be a great technique for teenagers specifically because they are so intrinsically curious AND defiant that they are drawn to ‘taboo’ or forbidden things,” someone shared.
“Good way to get kids to read more. Probably some disappointed 13 year old boys when they pick up the ‘nudity’ book and it’s Waldo,” another echoed.
Even an educator weighed in and agreed that the method works: “Over ten years, I’ve probably made around 50-100 new readers out of students by getting them to read something that some other person never wants them to see.”
What do you think? Do these classics need to be on a banned list?
