The madness of banned and challenged books is back. If you’ve followed recent reports of a certain school board, you already know that those who demand book bans haven’t even read the books.

I believe that answers the question without it being asked. Demanding Pulitzer Prize-winning books be removed from school libraries without even taking the time to read those books is insane.

Three of the four books I read this month have been banned or challenged in the past. They were all excellent and presented nothing that a skilled teacher couldn’t help a student understand and appreciate.

Perhaps parents and members of school boards need to log off of their social media and read a banned book.

Week 1: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

This was a re-read from high school – yes, an assigned book from an excellent English teacher. I remember taking the paperback along with me to a babysitting job and getting lost in it – and totally creeped out – once the kiddos were tucked away in bed.

It was at the height of “Big Brother is watching” horror that I did the math. The year was 1976 and the book was based on George Orwell’s dystopian vision for “the future,” which was just eight years away, by my calculations. He published Nineteen Eighty-Four – his final work – in 1949, just a few years after the horror of World War II. Rather than demanding this book be banned, we should all dust off our copies and give them another look.

It is all too familiar.

Week 2: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

This book introduced me to the concept of “hardboiled” being beyond just eggs.

“Hardboiled” is a literary genre that provides a tough, unsentimental crime story. It’s been around since 1929 and is considered to be uniquely American.

Author Raymond Chandler made good use of the style with his character Philip Marlowe, a private investigator. That name is familiar from classic radio shows, plus two film renditions of The Big Sleep.

I’m looking forward to Marlowe’s next case.

Week 3: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin

When I take one of Mom’s books off the shelf and open it, sometimes there’s a bookmark tucked between the pages.

In this case, it was a card with a note from one of Mom’s longtime friends, Jo B. The book was a Christmas gift to a fellow bibliophile – and it’s a title that’s been challenged.

The real challenge, though, was the author’s. A mountain climber, he finds himself drawn to helping desperately poor and remote villages in Pakistan build schools.

Schools where girls would be welcome.

Mortenson makes no argument that he’s a terrible manager, so challenges later as to how he ran the non-profit organization formed to fund the group’s schools in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan came as no surprise.

Three Cups of Tea is an amazing story. Bottom line, we can all learn more about the countries whose children can either receive an education and give back to their communities or be drawn into the lairs of terrorist trainers.

Week 4: The Color Purple by Alice Walker

It took me 40 years, but I finally read The Color Purple.

It’s one of the top banned books in America.

Did I feel uncomfortable? You bet.

Every single person who reads The Color Purple should be very uncomfortable. Celie tells us her story by writing letters, first to God and later to her sister Nettie, from whom she’s been separated for decades.

Celie’s story, set in the early 1900s in Georgia, includes racism, poverty, incest, and rape. It also includes friendship, love, and redemption. It is a story that should be shared, not shunned.

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As we all think – and worry – about the people of Ukraine following last week’s invasion by Russia, I’m reminded of my favorite line from another heavily banned book, The Kite Runner.

After a harrowing escape from Afghanistan, the protagonist and his father – Baba – are at last in America. Baba knows very little English, but manages to put together a memorable declaration while in a bar, celebrating his son.

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