Fun Fare

A Treasury of Reader’s Digest Wit and Humor

With illustrations by Robert Day

Copyright 1949

I picked this book up in a thrift store a while back, not because I wanted to read this treasury through -  although what I have read is quite funny.  Rather, it is because of the pen markings I noticed inside it at first glance.  Scattered throughout are scratched-off words, with alternate words in cursive above them.  I can still see the words through the pen scratches.  

 

Some examples:

“Darned if I know” has been altered to “How should I know”

“He’s a dern sight safer” is now “He’s a lot safer”

“Where in the hell were the Marines” became “Where were the Marines”

The funny thing is, what I ended up doing was going through the whole book, looking for the “bad” words that this person tried to omit.  If they hadn’t tried to censor, I would never have noticed these words.  

Isn’t that the way it is when we try to censor a child’s reading?  Their attention is immediately drawn to what is banned and they will go to any means possible to get their hands on the book to find out what is so bad.  Much like during a news program, when the announcer says, “You may not want to watch this as the images may be disturbing”.  Isn’t that the moment that our attention is drawn to it, and we can’t help but watch?

If you want a child to read a book, maybe you should try “banning” it.  That makes it all the more enticing and intriguing!