Forever Banned

Today marks the beginning of banned book week.  Do you remember the first banned book you read? Where you read it? I do.

Well, I take that back.  I remember the first book I was banned from and where I subsequently ended up reading it.

It's the early 80s and I was a huge Judy Blume fan. Everything she wrote about I could relate to--divorce, being Jewish, the friendships, the families, intermarriage, coming of age...everything really except the suburbia and boy did I want to live in the suburbs back then. Having gotten through all her early middle grade/upper elementary books, I thought I was ready for Forever.

Mom disagreed.  I just had to read it.  So where did I go? If Mom wasn't going to easily put it in my hands as she did every other book then the library was the next logical stop.

Enter the Briarwood branch of the Queens Public Library.  I can still see it so vividly.  Walk in the doors and go straight back to the Children's Section. Since we had a set of Encyclopedia Britannica at home circa 1967, I fell in love with the World Book Encyclopedia at the library.  It was so much more accessible!

Walk in and turn immediately to your right. And there it was--one tall bookcase of Young Adult literature screaming my name.  I remember taking Forever off the shelf (a very beat up paperback), sliding my back down the wall slowly for effect, ending in "criss cross applesause" (we called it something different back then) and diving in head first.

I didn't finish the book the first day so I memorized my page and came back to it the next time I could get to the library. I was meeting up with a "friend" and it felt sinfully good. I never told my Mom and I could see why she wanted me to wait to read it. But we all know. Once you tell a kid they can't do something, they are surely going to find a way to do it. And that I did.

I cannot tell you if the book was banned or censored in my public school. At the time it was just banned from my eyes.  But there it was at the library calling my name.  I was free to read it--just off the Van Wyck Expressway--to escape once again to the suburbs and young teenage love. Thank you, Queens Public Library and thank you, Judy Blume.