Since the election results in America, I’ve had article ideas mulling in the back of my head for
some time. I’m a small voice in Aberdeen, Scotland but when I wake up and scroll through my
phone, I’m bombarded everywhere by executive orders being passed and rights being taken
away. While the attention grabbing incidents are happening like nazi salutes and Melania’s
weird hat, there are darker things afoot. As I write this article, the DEI (diversity, equality and
inclusion) is disappearing from the government and I’m afraid for so many different people.
I like to see the brighter sides of life and I generally consider myself a very positive person but
with recent events I’ve felt myself becoming angrier and more frustrated with the state of US
politics. Voters were given the option of an incredibly qualified woman or a narcissistic
tangerine. You can say that America is quite far away from here but when you read articles
where Elon Musk is speaking about funding far right political parties here in the UK, it’s
terrifying. The Reform party has risen up with astonishing support and I’m afraid of what my
home country could become.
With education comes power and understanding, seeing what America is becoming has pushed
me to rebel in my own special way. I’ve been trying really hard to read books that at times have
challenging content. I want to embrace literature that challenges my perceptions of the world
and upholds different perspectives. Here are my favourite banned books!
Persepolis by Marjane Sartrapi
My friend Evelyn initially gifted this to me, I was skeptical at first as I’d never read a graphic
novel before. Sartrapi has rewritten her childhood in comic form and retells the events of the
Islamic Revolution from her perspective. Admittedly, I’m not as educated about the Middle East
as I’d like to be but this story gave me a really good insight into Iranian history. I found the art
style very charming and it sort of reminded me of a (somehow moreso) rebellious version of
Eloise. I really enjoyed reading this story.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Atwood has had a rich and diverse career with Handmaid’s Tale arguably being her biggest
success. It’s a fiction novel which depicts a society in which women lose their power altogether. “June” is at the center of our story as she countenances what it means to be a woman in this version of the world. The most galling part of this book is that every unbelievable aspect of the story has already happened in real life.
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Maus was one of the first books I read in January and it was the first graphic novel to receive a
Pulitzer Prize. It is an illustrated retelling of Vladek Spiegelman’s life throughout the war and
eventually his time in the Auschwitz concentration camp. The story represents the Jewish
characters as mice and the Germans as cats. The comics show the struggle that Vladek went
through at the time for his religion as well as how it affected his life post war.
Animal Farm by George Orwell
My last choice is the Orwell classic. After first reading this in school I wasn’t thrilled by the
talking animals. I decided to re-read the illustrated version of it and was blown away. Animal
Farm is an allegorical novella based on the events of the Russian Revolution. It shows the story
of farm animals looking for a happier, more equal life and so they overthrow the farmer. The
farm’s pigs rise to power insidiously and there is an iconic moment when the animals are
looking between the farmers and the pigs and cannot tell the difference between them. This
shows how the uprising actually created more oppression for the Russian people. It is illustrated
beautifully by an artist called Odyr, as you read it feels as if you’re looking at a painting in a
gallery as all the dark events of the book take place.