Banned Children’s Books
It’s Banned Book Week. Read some classic banned children’s books, such as Alice in Wonderland (was banned in China for ‘humanizing animals’); The Diary of Anne Frank (was banned in Lebanon for portraying Jews ‘favourably’); or the delightful The Rabbit’s Wedding by Garth Williams about a black and white romance (was banned in Alabama). Shel Silverstein‘s poems were often the target of censors (who considered them ‘anti-family’). I love his gently subversive collection A Light in the Attic, which includes a poem about a critical spirit, ‘Almost Perfect’, and my favourite, ‘With His Mouth Full of Food’:
Milford Dupree, though he knew it was rude,
Talked with his mouth full of food.
He never would burp or walk out of in the nude,
But he talked with his mouth full of food…
Tags: children's books, silverstein