Censorship Of Books

The Catcher in the Rye. The Scarlet Letter. Huckleberry Finn. Harry Potter. The Diary of Anne Frank. Animal Farm. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Da Vinci Code. The Grapes of Wrath. These literary classics have been vital to the education of many, especially children and adolescents (Banned Books). These great novels both teach important values and educate children about world affairs and classic themes. Unfortunately, each of these novels has been banned at one point in time. In a country where freedom is so adamantly advocated, it is a wonder that an issue like censorship would even come up, that such a controversy would sink its claws into the minds of states’ boards of education across the nation.

This guarantees every individual the freedom to write and read what they choose. Yet in the past twenty years, thousands of books have been challenged in almost every state. This censorship is against the American ideals of individual freedom. While most censors intend to “protect” others from things they consider objectionable (Time, p.85), they are still taking away the rights of others to choose for themselves.

Each year, someone is guilty of challenging a book while others are guilty of banning novels from the classroom. The question remains, is censorship necessarily a negative thing? Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a novel that has caused havoc and controversy within the education system. While some critics argue Speak should be “hidden” from students, many believe otherwise. At a glance, this novel contains scenes involving issues of drugs, parents that are disengaged in their child 's life, sexuality, and rape. It may seem understandable that it has been challenged throughout the past, however, while reading this novel, these specific scenes introduce a student to much more than just “inappropriate content.” By censoring this novel from

On the other hand, some people argue that book censorship is a violation of their constitutional right to freedom of speech, and the right to self expression. One article puts its effects this way, “Permitting restraints on literature sets the stage for attacks on all expression that is artistically or politically controversial or that portray unpleasant realities of life.” This,

First, the author argues, “When engaging in critical literacy, readers question reality and entertain multiple perspectives about particular topics, attitudes, and behaviors” (Graff). Challenged and banned books are beneficial to readers. These banned books help students evaluate more difficult pieces of literature, which could be used in the future. Jennifer Graff states, “...Book censorship helps us think critically about the power of the written word as well as the relationships between individuals, texts, and contexts, to paraphrase Lawrence Sipe (1999)” (Graff). Banned and challenged books allow readers to see the truth--from the past, future, or present--written by the author. Readers can apply these ideas to real-life situations successfully. In the article, On Reading and Sharing Banned Books, the topic of “...heightened sensitivity about what and how we say things,” and needing, “ongoing conversations about how literature can be part of our lives without undue stress and controversy” is exposed (Graff). Books are written for many reasons, to inform persuade, entertain, and relax; however, with books censorship, finding relaxing or entertaining books is extremely difficult. Without censorship, readers could easily discuss these now controversial topics without worry. The purpose of the book, good moral, and potentially

Banning or challenging books is an occurrence that has been taking place for years in America’s school systems, but often parents and teachers are not in agreement concerning censorship. The National Council of Teachers of English position statement is “We can safely make two statements about censorship: first, any work is potentially open to attack by someone, somewhere, sometime, for some reason; second, censorship is often arbitrary and irrational.” One such challenged book is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, which was “banned from an eighth-grade classroom in Arizona due to profanity, sexual content, and rape theme” (Lesesne and Chance 48). Even though it presents difficult topics, Speak could be a benefit to students in a

Knowledge is power. Using knowledge, people can reshape society and the world as a whole, changing it for the better. However, gaining access to the necessary wealth of information requires a full education: people should be taught multiple ideologies and topics from an unbiased perspective. They must receive access to various viewpoints in their entirety. Teaching only one worldview strips students of their ability to truly analyze the world and its issues, because they cannot look beyond the one restrictive narrative they learned and therefore cannot develop their own perspective. Censorship hinders schools, institutions with the purpose of informing students and helping them develop their beliefs. Therefore, schools should not practice censorship when selecting literature for students because censorship obscures the purpose of literature, because censorship fails to expose students to a variety of ideas, and because censorship removes students’ ability to develop unique opinions and worldviews; education should provide an unbiased view of the world and many ideologies, so students can take their own stance on various issues rather than blindly following what they learn.

Censorship is a concept with several different meanings. To each individual censorship has its own meaning. Is it a violation of our rights or is it a protection for our well being? Censorship in the generic sense refers to the suppression of information, ideas, or opinions. It occurs in all forms of communication from technological media to print media. Each society, culture, or individual's belief is violated by the codes of censorship that our society instills.

When being assigned this project, I immediately went to this issue of banning books in the classroom. I remember growing up reading some of these books on the banned list. But not remembering them for being racist or indecent, but rather them depicting a time period and a glips of society back them. I wanted to get down to the reason why and who has the power of banning books. I wanted to dig deeper into the reasons why books were becoming banned and reach out to the community of educators for their opinion on this topic.

Censorship is a problem that has popped up throughout the world. “Censorship takes place anytime a book is removed from its intended audience” (Whelan). The banning and censoring of books puts a pall on the eyes of children and adults alike. Many novels have been banned and challenged, dredging up controversies that now plague the entire world. Carrie by Stephen King is a novel that was challenged by schools and libraries.

They think that matters such as racial themes, alternative lifestyles, profanity, sex, violence, negativity, witchcraft, unpopular religious views, unpopular political views, and basically and theme that is labelled as ‘unsuitable’ for a certain age group should be banned. However, our day-to-day life proves that things like these are unavoidable. 1. “In a media-flooded world, where information travels exactly as fast as your Twitter feed loads, it would take the shield of Captain America to keep the unpleasant facts of reality at bay. And more important, these bullets of candor don’t injure young people. They simply open up their minds, or even offer them something to identify with,” says Jamie Leigh for Punchnel. From driving in your car, listening to the radio, watching TV, walking around your community, one thing is clear – you can’t dodge these topics forever. It’s just part of life. In addition, people may feel as though bad content found in books could encourage bad behavior. Let’s consider violence for example. Violence in the media seems to be a bit of an argument currently going on. 2. According to the Luther College’s article, Does Violence Have a Place in Children’s Literature?, “…this fear and panic rests on the assumption that boys cannot tell the difference between violence in a story and the violence in real life (p. 512).

In the Western World, “Banned Books Week” is a relatively new quasi-holiday celebrated each year in late September. For the duration of the week, people are encouraged to read and learn about books that have been challenged or banned for their content, be it slightly controversial or downright blasphemous. For the first time in history, controversial books are beginning to be celebrated for their thought-provoking nature rather than shunned for their risqué content. Over the years, some of the most critically acclaimed classics, including J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, have been banned for reasons ranging from foul language, to overt sexual and violent themes, to references to the occult (“Banned”).

The use of censorship to examine and eliminate elements in media that are found to be unorthodox or radical has been prevalent in society for centuries. Through censorship, ideas found to be objectionable or offensive are repressed. In his prophetic novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury denotes the common practice of government censorship of books as a suppressive and marginalizing concept for humans because it strips them of the realities, truths, and meaning behind books and deprives them the freedom to deliberate and act on them. The protagonist, Guy Montag lives in a futuristic, American society and is a ‘firemen’; a group of men that deflect the old conventional purpose of stopping fires, to creating

“It’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written, the books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers” (Blume 1999). Judy Blume can not explain the problem of book censorship any clearer. The children are the real losers because they are the ones that are not able to read the classic works of literature which are the backbone of classroom discussions all across the United States.

Some people do not realize that they affect the education of their children by banning certain books. The banning of books is banning the author's right to free speech which can hinder the education of Americans. In schools teachers have to worry about what readings they present to their students because they could have any parent coming after them for exposing their children to “heinous” or “bad” things when all it truly is, is literature used to broaden