Censorship

Question:

My English teacher has assigned us a censorship project. We were given a list of banned/challenged books and we had to choose one to do a report over, explaining why it was banned/challenged and giving our viewpoint on the book and censorship. I am a HUGE fan of your Alice series, so I chose the Alice series. I was wondering what your viewpoint is on your books being challenged or banned?

Phyllis replied:

Of course I wish that none of my books were banned or censored, but the strange thing is that whenever this happens, the book sells many more copies. The fact is that there are so many sensitive issues to so many different groups of people, that if every book was taken off the shelves that might offend someone, then any book that dealt with death, abortion, divorce, Halloween, sex, witches, holidays, pork, coed swimming, movies, makeup, homosexuality, violence, devils, alcohol, drugs, etc. etc. etc. would have to go. Some people feel that books for children and young people should always be inspirational, and that the characters should never do anything of which the reader might not approve. Writers write from the heart. We write about life as it is in many cases, as well as life as it could be, or once was. And the day that we all sit down to write the novel that will offend absolutely no one, will be the day that literature dies.

Posted on: October 8, 2010