Student Thwarts School’s Book Ban by Forming Secret Lending Library

By John Farrier in Book & Literature on May 26, 2009 at 2:27 pm

A pseudonymous (presumably) student named Kat Atreides responded to her school’s ban on a large number of books by forming a secret library in her locker, and then loaning out banned books to students:

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!

I hope that the school administrators were actually trying to trick students into reading, and weren’t so foolish as to imagine that banning books would lead to teenagers not reading them.

Link via Jessamyn West

image by flickr user florian.b used under creative commons license


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  1. greeneagle
    May 26th, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    Teenagers still read books?

  2. Mouserz
    May 26th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    I don’t need a ban all up in my grill to not read.

  3. Courageous Grace
    May 26th, 2009 at 3:05 pm

    I’m definitely not the type to yell “fake” but my BS meter on this one is going off. I’d like to see an actual news story reported on this rather than some anonymous poster on a forum before I take something like this seriously. The poster doesn’t say the name of the school, the city, state or even country of the school, and she seems to have an excuse for every question raised.

  4. Skipweasel
    May 26th, 2009 at 3:08 pm

    How can anyone’s favourite book be CitR? The protagonists is a whining little git who rambles on for three times as long as is needed to make the point. It’d've been a fine short story, but as a novel it drags and drags.

  5. CheeseDuck
    May 26th, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    The only thing I learned from the Catcher in the Rye was that YOU DON’T MESS WITH PROSTITUTES.

  6. hhype
    May 26th, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    This is a hoax. Perhaps a review of the skeptical comments from on the BoingBoing discussion of this story would help.

    http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/24/kid-keeping-a-lendin.html

    I’ll reiterate my comment from there:

    “…I don’t know how anyone with internet access these days doesn’t start with the basic assumption that everything they read is false until proven otherwise and with multiple sources. Kind of a wikipedia approach to everything.”

    Neatorama, BoingBoing, Fark, Reddit, and Digg linking and posting around in a ring like the tail-devouring snake Ouroborus, yet with no fact checking between them.

  7. Screen Sleuth
    May 26th, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    There’s still book banning? As far as I know, even the most religious, backwards schools don’t ban many books anymore.

  8. muledoggie
    May 26th, 2009 at 4:10 pm

    FAKE. FAKE. FAKE.

    Like 90% of banned book articles …

    mule

  9. Miramon
    May 26th, 2009 at 4:13 pm

    Catcher in the Rye? The bane of junior high school students for generations? Banned? Haha. Right.

    Somewhere, in his secure undisclosed location, J. D. Salinger is laughing.

    “You know what I’d like to be? I mean if I had the goddamn choice? I’d just go ahead and be the Catcher in the Rye and all.”

  10. Thomas
    May 26th, 2009 at 4:14 pm

    Totally fake. For one, trusting a question on Yahoo Answers is like citing wikipedia on your doctoral dissertation.

    Another point, her previous question on Yahoo Answers went something like, “what are some commonly banned books? My school doesn’t ban any, I’m just curious.” She said that her friend went to a school where some books were banned, but that her own school had no such policy.

    Also, after people online started taking this seriously, and asking where they could DONATE MONEY TO HER she disabled the ability to search her previous questions. I was going to post on BB about it and I went from one of her questions to another, and when I tried to go to the next, she’d disabled the feature that lets users see what questions she’d asked, as well as the ability to contact her, both of which were available when I started.

    Just to top things off, in the question she is being praised for, she talks about not wanting to “pollute her library” with Twilight, but in one of her other questions she refers to it as one of her favorites.

    Several of her questions were simply her vetting ideas for her own writings (nothing wrong with that), and some suggest that this question is simply that, no harm done. Howver, I’ve heard many people suggest that she open a PayPal account so that people could donate money, and I’ve heard other suggest that she be given a full scholarship to wherever she wants to go. I know this kind of thing pulls at the geek heartstrings, but please don’t buy into it.

    Maybe I’m a cynic, but I don’t believe this story for a second.

  11. Rich
    May 26th, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    Interesting how this follows an earlier post about “The Science News Cycle” http://www.neatorama.com/2009/05/25/the-science-news-cycle/

  12. seefish3
    May 26th, 2009 at 4:53 pm

    Even if this story is true (unlikely), her fellow students don’t have access to libraries, used book stores, or the Internet?

    FAIL!

  14. Thomas
    May 26th, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    Thanks, Jake D. I didn’t feel like finding that link after writing my lengthy comment. I am a lazy bastard.

  15. John
    May 26th, 2009 at 5:29 pm

    Well, hell.

    I’d like to defend myself, but you are all correct. I should have been way more skeptical and found a more reliable source for this story before posting it. Sloppy work on my part.

  16. CheeseDuck
    May 26th, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    @Jake D.

    Hahahaha. FAIL. Good job at that too!

  17. felixthecat
    May 26th, 2009 at 5:50 pm

    Probably fake, yes, but there are still schools that are banning books, and there is pressure on public libraries to shed themselves of certain books because some bluenose ignoramus doesn’t want people reading what they are afraid to read. Let’s say that I am some white trash sort from Alaska, the mayor of a small town. Why, I might just march into the “liberry” and threaten, obliquely, the librarian if she doesn’t remove certain books from the shelves.

  18. Moon
    May 26th, 2009 at 7:14 pm

    Phewwwww. I was gonna say “I went to the strictest religious school maybe ever, and they didn’t have a problem with ‘Catcher in the Rye’”

    Hahaha! Fake.

  19. Jake D.
    May 26th, 2009 at 7:52 pm

    No worries, John. It’s a cool story, it’s too bad it’s fabricated. I actually saw it on a forum I post on and thought it was cool, then shortly after someone posted the link with the question about banned books.

    The internet is filled with detectives!

  20. angstrom
    May 26th, 2009 at 8:27 pm

    one thing I’ve learned from all this is – if you have a silly name on the internet and happen to post a viral thread somewhere, then the whole damn internet will be digging up your past. 8 billion sleuths trying to figure out if you are a 14 year old girl with a penchant for books, or actually a 50 year old mediastudies lecturer playing an evil trick on the poor innocent timewasters of the interweb.

    I must remember, never post anything interesting on the net, or I will find my garden full of youtube commenters shouting “TeH Fake!” and “yr ghey!”

  22. strangepork
    May 26th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    this story (and it’s subsequent surprises) reads like a heartwarming summer blockbuster, coming soon to a theater near you.

  23. barkingmad59
    May 26th, 2009 at 11:45 pm

    “Let’s say that I am some white trash sort from Alaska, the mayor of a small town. Why, I might just march into the “liberry” and threaten, obliquely, the librarian if she doesn’t remove certain books from the shelves.”

    Yeah, because we all know *that* really happened…:::cough:::

    Too bad it’s a hoax. I wish whoever ‘Kat’ really is had put this much work and creativity into something useful.

    (OK, besides ‘useful’='inspiring a bunch of dorks on the net to research and quibble about it’)

  24. ted
    May 27th, 2009 at 5:38 am

    Catcher in The Rye? I suppose the other banned books were Brave New World and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Not imaginative enough to fake something contemporary?

    Come on.

  25. A Noun
    May 27th, 2009 at 8:40 am

    Too bad the story’s fake…because the first thing I thought was, “Haw haw, made you read!”

  26. Kalel
    May 27th, 2009 at 11:38 am

    This is one for the books.


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