Apparently some high school kid is running an illegal library out of his locker?

A friend forwarded this recently from a Yahoo! Answers section.

A high school kid asks if distributing books banned by the school is a good or bad thing. Here's his whole message:

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Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school?

Let me explain.

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! This happened a lot and my locker got to overflowing with the banned books, so I decided to put the unoccupied locker next to me to a good use. I now have 62 books in that locker, about half of what was on the list. I took care only to bring the books with literary quality. Some of these books are:

>The Perks of Being a Wallflower
>His Dark Materials trilogy
>Sabriel
>The Canterbury Tales
>Candide
>The Divine Comedy
>Paradise Lost
>The Godfather
>Mort
>Interview with the Vampire
>The Hunger Games
>The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
>A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
>Animal Farm
>The Witches
>Shade's Children
>The Evolution of Man
> the Holy Qu'ran
... and lots more.

Anyway, I now operate a little mini-library that no one has access to but myself. Practically a real library, because I keep an inventory log and give people due dates and everything. I would be in so much trouble if I got caught, but I think it's the right thing to do because before I started, almost no kid at school but myself took an active interest in reading! Now not only are all the kids reading the banned books, but go out of their way to read anything they can get their hands on. So I'm doing a good thing, right? Oh, and since you're probably wondering "Why can't you just go to a local library and check out the books?" most of the kids are too chicken or their parents won't let them but the books. I think that people should have open minds. Most of the books were banned because they contained information that opposed Catholisism. I limit my 'library' to only the sophmores, juniors and seniors just in case so you can't say I'm exposing young people to materiel they're not mature enough for. But is what I'm doing wrong because parents and teachers don't know about it and might not like it, or is it a good thing because I am starting appreciation of the classics and truly good novels (Not just fad novels like Twilight) in my generation?

Additional Details

More books I have:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Slaughterhouse-5
Lord of the Flies
Bridge to Terabithia
Catch-22
East of Eden
The Brothers Grimm Unabridged Fairytales.
...the list goes on.

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Thank God someone's banning Catcher in the Rye, because that book is terrible. (HA! Joke. Joke. I don't want emails from fans threatening me with witty diatribes. Salinger fans are a touchy bunch. LOVE YOU GUYS!)


Of course, everyone answering this on Yahoo tells our young hero the lad is, indeed, a hero. I'm just confused as to the reasoning why 75% of these were banned.

Is Catch-22 too anti-war? Because, really, if there's anything Americans should strive for it's more bloodshed.

East of Eden too long? Damnit, Steinbeck, keep it pithy, okay?

And Hitchhiker's Guide too glib? Because we all know sarcasm died, circa 1978.