Book banning: it’s bad! And it never quite works the way people want it to. If there’s something in a book that’s unpleasant or deemed “too adult” for younger readers, you know what’s going to make those younger readers even more excited to get their hands on said book?

That’s right: banning it. Case in point, the works of Judy Blume, which were often banned in the 70s and 80s for their frank content surrounding teenage sexuality and coming-of-age. Today, it’s pretty obvious that there’s very little to find fault with in the works of the adored young adult author. But back in the day, people sure did not want young girls reading about other young girls getting their period. They simply KNEW that knowledge would be the thing to cause societal collapse!

And they were wrong, just as the new breed of conservative parents are now when they attempt to books like George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue” and Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” banned from certain Southern school districts. Same shit, different decade. So what are people doing to drive the point home? Taking to Twitter, of course, with heartwarming tales of passing the same few banned books around, delighting in their contraband descriptions of sexuality and self-discovery.

Where there’s a will, there’s absolutely a way.

If kids want to read something, they will read it, full stop.

The more you frown upon it, the more we’ll want to read it:

Here’s Blume herself on the topic:

Standing in the way of knowledge doesn’t work for very long: if anything, it just whets our appetite.

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