My neighbor made me reconsider why I still love The Giver after all these years

I was talking to my neighbor Mike yesterday while we were both unloading groceries. He said he banned his kid from reading The Giver because it's "too dark" and has this weird government control thing. That hit different for me because I read that book in 6th grade back in 1987 and it was the first time I really thought about memory and choice. Here's the thing though, Mike grew up in a real strict household and never got to pick his own books. So his idea of banning something comes from a place of protecting his kid, not controlling what others read. I told him that my daughter read it last year at 12 and she spent a whole week asking me about snow and colors and what we'd lose if we had no pain. Made me wonder how many people who challenge books are just trying to shield kids from stuff they personally found hard to deal with as a kid. Has anyone else had a conversation with someone who banned a book and found out it was more about their own history than the actual content?

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hannah24017d ago

Right? My dad was the same way with Roald Dahl books.