Reading Responsibly?

I was looking through my notes for class, trying to find that little star that, at the time, I thought would be attention grabbing enough to remind me where I had jotted down a reminder of what I wanted to blog about. Needless to say, I'll be making those little stars a little bigger next time.

Anyway. The star, once found, was marking a list of questions about the nature of reading. The question that caught my blogging fancy was, "is reading dangerous?"

I'm sure we're all familiar with the notion of banning books. Over the past year I've participated in a few book drives that refuse to take Harry Potter books, or any other book that promotes the practice of witchcraft. Schools and libraries have been banning The Catcher in the Rye ever since its publication in 1951, citing everything from the language to Holden being a poor role model. (Of course, the fact that John Lennon's murderer was obsessed with the novel probably didn't help matters.) In Google-ing about banned books for this search, I discovered that many of my childhood favorites have been banned or contested: A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle), Julie of the Wolves (George), Bridge to Terebithia (Paterson), To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee), and James and the Giant Peach (Dahl).

I constantly wonder about the dangers of reading, especially in light of my preparations to become a teacher. Because, when I'm being honest, I don't think the problem lies with the books, I think the problem lies with the reader. The Catcher in the Rye did not kill John Lennon, Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon. In the hands of a mature, responsible reader, who knows the difference between fiction and real life, and who knows that the thoughts and actions of the author or characters are not blueprints for life, a book should not be dangerous. But in the hands of someone who cannot evaluate the credibility of a narrator, who cannot distinguish between right and wrong, or between fiction and reality--a book can be a dangerous thing.

So perhaps I do see the logic behind banning books, because really, how can you know who will read the book or poem and get the wrong ideas? How can I know, as a teacher, which of my students can handle To Kill a Mockingbird and which can't?

Regardless of the logic, however. I still find it sad, for as I said in a previous post: I love reading characters with flaws. But characters with flaws often do bad things, and think bad things, and say bad things. Must we resign ourselves to two-dimensional, unrealistic, characters in the name of safety?