Reading

Yesterday I decided to go to the library and check out some banned books. Oddly, there is no reference to banned books week at the public library. I would think they would want to celebrate diversity. It was odd. Anyway, I checked out “The Chocolate War” and “I Know Why the Caged Birds Sings”. I had never read either one of these books. I had never heard of “The Chocolate War” and I was reading it when I got home and my DH asked what I was reading. I told him that it was one of the top banned books of 2006. He was surprised since it was so old. I was shocked to see it had been written in 1974. I guess teenagers never really change all that much. It is a good book so far.
I was wondering why I had never even heard of it when I realized that I really did not spend much time reading “teen” fiction. I read a couple of Judy Blume books and then went right into Heinlein, Bradbury, Stephen King and Kurt Vonnegut. No time for teen books. Not really much time for anything reality based, because, well reality sucked. This does not include biographies and history books, which I love. I know this seems like a contradiction, but I consider the past not as real as the present. It is always under debate as to what happened. (I have a degree in history and I was reading history books on my own when I was in high school. Yes, I was THAT popular! :) )
I still gravitate towards the fantastic and the surreal. Perhaps this is not good, I am not sure. I know that life is far more complicated than most books can portray.
One reality based fiction book and movie I did love was “Mystic River” and that was mainly because it showed how angry someone who is bereaved can be. I find that death is often portrayed with sadness only, but I know that when my sister died, I was pissed off. And the whole custody battle was a nightmare. I remember reading some Anne Tyler book (“St. Maybe”?) in which some guy’s brother and sister in-law dies and he takes custody of the kids. Of course these kids were just little angels and had no ill effects from the loss of their parents! What a load of hogwash. It just really sort of ticked me off. Would it kill her to say go talk to some people who are raising someone else’s kid(s) and see what it might really be like?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to rant.