It’s Banned Books Weeks again, the saddest time of year when the American Library Association helps us celebrate literacy’s fight against the censorious white people who make it their business to make sure all the rest of us are protected from BAD BOOKS. Not badly-written books, of course — those are doing just fine. I’m referring to the books that make some people nervous, like those that might include a bad word or a reference to “sex.” Not infrequently, the list includes some really good books, like The Grapes of Wrath (burned in East St. Louis, and banned many other places) or Slaughterhouse-Five ( burned in North Dakota and banned in 2011 from a high school in Missouri), Of Mice and Men, Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, the list goes on and on, and there really is no rhyme or reason so don’t try to find one.
This year’s list of the ten most-challenged books has a new #1…….shit’s about to get real….the entire Captain Underpants series. Captain. Freaking. Underpants. It’s three levels ahead of 50 Shades of freaking Grey.
A hugely popular goofy superhero parody for the 12 and under set and now the Ulysses of the fourth grade set, the Captain Underpants books are lousy with poops, poots, toots, boogers, toilets and the word underpants.
Apparently, the Waistband Warrior is so threatening to all that is decent and holy that he had to be removed from libraries nationwide. The censorious prigs claim they contain “offensive language” and are “unsuited for [their] age group.” Now as any well-meaning bookworm Aunt of a ten-year-old boy who was reluctant to read knows, these are exactly suited for the age group… an honest complaint might be that they’re suited entirely too well to their age group. That is why I bought the, for my nephew. Also, some parents object to the obviously deliberate misspellings in the main characters’ hilarious, homemade comic books, because they fear that their precious little budding brainiacs will be tainted by loose standards — a complaint that no longer seems to dog Huckleberry Finn.
You know, the real difference between the prudish conservatives of today and and yesteryear is that they are no longer afraid of looking fcking stupid. Also, yhey’ll take my underpants when they pry them from my cold, dead ass.
