I grew up in a small town where the vast majority of people in my class fit the WASP bill - that is, white anglo-saxon protestants. Those who didn't went to the Catholic high school. People who were any color other than white or fake-tan orange must only live in cities, I thought. Until an age I'm embarrassed to admit, I thought that Hitler had killed all the Jews because I didn't know any and had certainly never seen a synagogue. Anyone who practiced Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism only lived in strange, foreign lands that I was probably never going to see.
In other words, I was ignorant. Horrifyingly ignorant. And I'm a bit like Meliara Astiar in that if there's one thing that I hate, it's my own ignorance.
So imagine my surprise when I learned that other people were even more ignorant than I was. While I sought to banish my ignorance, others sought to maintain theirs. I was told at an awfully young age that I was going to Hell for reading The Golden Compass.
Now, my family was a bit odd in that we never went to church. I was baptised when I was three - later told that it was only so that my great-grandparents could die peacefully without thinking their poor great-granddaugther was going to burn - and went to a Baptist church a couple of times with one of my friends, but then we only whispered to each other in the back of the congregation, and giggled. So I admit that I am a bit ignorant when it comes to Christian ways too, despite my upbringing. But I decided that anyone who tells a young child they're going to Hell for reading a book, and a children's book at that, probably I didn't want to learn much about whatever religion they were practicing, anyway.
Let me clear up a few common misconceptions. 1) No God dies in The Golden Compass. 2) No main character, particularly not a young girl, goes God-hunting with the intent to kill him. 3) When God does die - I refuse to call attempted rescue "murder" - he doesn't seem too fussed. 4) IT IS A WORK OF FICTION.
Yes, the books work with adult themes. Yes, they may contain content that would concern strict Christian parents - understandable, if the books were a call to arms against your religion, and not the adventurous, delightful, beguiling stories that they are. Quite frankly, as a relatively intelligent ten-year-old reading these books for the first time, I had absolutely no idea they were about religion. Because as a ten-year-old, I knew that I was reading a work of fiction. It didn't occur to me that works of fiction containing talking armored bears and characters who wore their souls outside of them as shape-shifting animals could have any basis in the real world. My mind was completely blown when I noticed Svalbard on the globe for the first time.
The point is, trust your children. Trust that they know fact from fiction, and if they don't, it's high time you educate them. If you worry about the content of His Dark Materials or any book I review on this blog, I encourage you to read it first before passing it on. And certainly read it before making a comment about it. I don't care how many people have told you - you need to read what you're critiquing and form your own opinion. Surely you trust yourself not to lose faith in your religion because of a mere children's book? If not, I can't imagine your faith was very strong to begin with.
Censorship doesn't end with religion, though. Books are banned for numerous ridiculous reasons and kept out of schools, libraries, and the hands of curious children just because a few parents complained. Profanity, violence, sexual content - I understand. I understand those more than I do the religion factor, but that's just me. Every child is different. Every child is on a different level, and it is the parent who can decide when that child is ready to read certain types of content. It is not for any one parent to decide what his or her neighbor's children read. Or the children down the block.
Don't judge a book by its cover - and don't judge it by rumors, either. Read it, then give your opinion.
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm
