Brave Teens

You’ve probably already seen this but I have an idea . . . ooooo, that’s dangerous.
Have you seen the postings about this high school kid who has created a lending library of banned books in a school locker? This teen is added to my heroes list:
Here’s the Yahoo Answers link and read the comments too to discover why. My idea is at the end of this post.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AoCt3NHGwM8BxD2H1669H3_ty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090305151758AA7dWwd
Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school?
“Let me explain.
I go to a private school that is rather strict. Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long) list of books we’re not allowed to read. I was absolutely appalled, because a large number of the books were classics and others that are my favorites. One of my personal favorites, The Catcher in the Rye, was on the list, so I decided to bring it to school to see if I would really get in trouble. Well… I did but not too much. Then (surprise!) a boy in my English class asked if he could borrow the book, because he heard it was very good AND it was banned! This happened a lot and my locker got to overflowing with the banned books, so I decided to put the unoccupied locker next to me to a good use. I now have 62 books in that locker, about half of what was on the list. I took care only to bring the books with literary quality. Some of these books are:
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
His Dark Materials trilogy
Sabriel
The Canterbury Tales
Candide
The Divine Comedy
Paradise Lost
The Godfather
Mort
Interview with the Vampire
The Hunger Games
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Animal Farm
The Witches
Shade’s Children
The Evolution of Man
the Holy Qu’ran
… and lots more.
Anyway, I now operate a little mini-library that no one has access to but myself. Practically a real library, because I keep an inventory log and give people due dates and everything. I would be in so much trouble if I got caught, but I think it’s the right thing to do because before I started, almost no kid at school but myself took an active interest in reading! Now not only are all the kids reading the banned books, but go out of their way to read anything they can get their hands on. So I’m doing a good thing, right? Oh, and since you’re probably wondering “Why can’t you just go to a local library and check out the books?” most of the kids are too chicken or their parents won’t let them but the books. I think that people should have open minds. Most of the books were banned because they contained information that opposed Catholicism. I limit my ‘library’ to only the sophomores, juniors and seniors just in case so you can’t say I’m exposing young people to materiel they’re not mature enough for. But is what I’m doing wrong because parents and teachers don’t know about it and might not like it, or is it a good thing because I am starting appreciation of the classics and truly good novels (Not just fad novels like Twilight) in my generation?
Additional Details
More books I have:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Slaughterhouse-5
Lord of the Flies
Bridge to Terabithia
Catch-22
East of Eden
The Brothers Grimm Unabridged Fairytales.
…the list goes on.
Twilight is banned also, but I don’t want that polluting my library.
As for getting the press involved, reporters are not allowed on campus. Besides, my parents would be so mad if they found out I was doing this.”
Don’t you just love this teen?! I’d love to get this kid on the LIS scholarship track.
Haven’t we always known that the best way to get kids to read is to ban the books they want to read. I love it when school admins play into our librarian hands.
Now here’s my evil idea. Has anyone got the time to see how many of these books are available as e-books? Which ones might be older public domain or free and which ones are available as e-books that could be acquired in a collection.
Can we create a [ALA] collection of 100 banned books that we license to all school and public libraries for free? We could make it a memorial and name it the Judith Krug Collection.
Let’s hear it for subversion and libraries.
Stephen