I will be blogging all week about banned and challenged books. This year's focus is on graphic novels. I begin with The Adventures of Captain Underpants.
Clearly written for nine-year-old boys, this novel reads as if it were written by one. I don't necessarily fault it for that. I see the appeal for the target demographic and I chose to read it after all, which is what Banned Books Week is all about - choosing for ourselves what we want to read. There are other books in this series, and I have chosen NOT to read those.
Pilkey's novel topped the list of most frequently challenged books of 2013 for "offensive language" (I guess that would be words like "toilet" and "wedgie" and "doo-doo") and for being "unsuited for age group" - huh? this book is perfectly suited for the age group. I can't imagine for whom else it would be suited!
There are no libraries in this book, but the two main characters, George and Harold, do like to write their own comic books (about Superhero Captain Underpants). They charge 50 cents each for them though, so there is no free sharing of information either.
See what Dav Pilkey has to say about all this:
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