If My Grandmother Only Knew


 I've written so much about growing up in the country in one of the four houses in a row full of family, and the old chicken coop converted to a clubhouse where I'd play with cousins, day after day after day, using our imaginations, using the books and chalkboards and desks the adults bought from an abandoned schoolhouse, bringing them home and putting them in our converted chicken coop for us to enjoy. And that is just what we did.

Sometimes, I'd bring a book I was reading to the clubhouse. So would a certain cousin. We made time in our busy schedule to read our books. Those books might have been Nancy Drew titles or books written by Louisa May Alcott. One thing for sure, many of those books were from 'The Little House on the Prairie Book Series,' books more often than not bought by our grandmother and given to us with love as gifts for Christmas.
IF MY GRANDMOTHER ONLY KNEW that very book series, she bought for us as gifts is now on the most recent list of Banned Books! Wow! How shocking! I loved those books! They join so many (too many) other amazing books now banned including, 'Where the Wild Things Are,' 'Anne of Green Gables,' 'The Harry Potter Paperback Series'(another Wow-Brian and I Loved those books), 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', 'Call of the Wild,' (Brian and I loved that book too), 'Gone with the Wind,' (I read that book in the clubhouse. Took me the whole summer to read it. I loved it).
Brian and I are currently reading, "The Giver"-another Banned Book!
So many Banned Books! Too many Banned Books. Over 3,000 Banned Books. Other than being a parent, how can someone choose what others can read? Why?
Reading books expands our minds. Our knowledge. Books offer us imagination, information. They take us away. We meet people of different cultures. Some books are history lessons tied around a storyline. We Learn. Laugh. Cry. Cringe.

We grow as a human being. And so do our Children.

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