The end of September is Banned Book Week, the time when libraries promote books that have been challenged or banned in order to encourage people to read them as an act of defiance in support of intellectual freedom. For the most part, I can support this movement. After all, government should not be dictating what people are allowed to read and write. However, there are a few points I would argue.
The inclusion of books that were "challenged" without being banned. One loudmouth whiner who pitches a fit in some nowhere town as small as the one where I work can get a book on the list, where it is promoted alongside literature that has actually been forbidden or even burned. I'd say there's a distinction to be made there, but it is too often glossed over in the lists of "banned books" I find.
Books that are objectively of little literary quality often earn outraged "challenges." I'm looking at you, Young Adult Paranormal Romance genre. I don't necessarily support banning such books, but why bring attention to them if you do? This genre and other similarly meaningless shelf-filler will go away faster if people just ignore it. Pitching a fit over worthless books brings the Streisand Effect into play and makes it harder for time to take its course and return those books to the obscurity where most bad novels eventually vanish.
I 100% support banning this book (pictured below) because tofu is garbage and should be abolished from the face of the Earth.
Burn it with fire. I mean, don't just burn the book. Burn tofu. All of it.
If you can't tell which point is tongue-in-cheek, you're probably gonna have a bad time online in general!
