Go Ask Alice: Banned Books

Although it is ridiculous to ban books, it is somewhat understandable. Some books are extremely heavy on the controversial side, and include a boat load of inappropriate content. “My corduroys. My boxers. Two layers. I could feel the warmth of her cheek on my thigh. There are times when it is appropriate, even preferable, to get an erection when someone’s face is in close proximity to your penis” (Green). It is easy to see why someone with a closed mind would take offense to this kind of content being in a book for young

The American Library Association has recorded a total of 275 books that were challenged in 2015, The Holy Bible was one of the top 10 most challenged books. The challenging and banning of books is a huge item in the United States of America. The American Library Association has a week devoted to banning books which takes place the last week end of September. Banned Books Week for 2016 will be September 25 through October 1. It is not ethical to ban books due to content such as: language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, and homosexual situations

What is a banned book? A banned/challenged book is a book that has or is in the process of being removed from school libraries. Three reasons a book would be banned or challenged are profanity, sexually explicit content, and alcohol. There are others reasons a book could be banned, but those I listed are just examples. Also those are also reasons the book “Harris and me” is banned.

Books are said to be the foundation of our knowledge, the fruit of our innovation and the life of our values. Today, we can read Fifty-Shades of Grey publicly without a sanction and is viewed as normal. Although among children’s books it has not always been that way. In China, Green Eggs and Ham written by Dr. Seuss was banned by the Chinese Government from 1965-1991 due to its supposed display of early Marxism and in California due to its assume sexual nature. The world of tolerance pertaining to books has expanded from sneaking in to reading online to now also the difference within education systems like China and among the state of California. In California, Green Eggs and Ham was banned by officials at a California School in the early 1990’s due to the assumption that the book gave homosexual seduction in which they thought the eggs and ham tempted Sam in a sexual nature while in China, the book was ban because the Chinese

The profanity that is made reference to in this case includes words like goddamn, sex, hell, and others. For example, “I hope to hell when I do die someone has the sense…” (The Catcher in the Rye.). The recommendation to ban a book from school courses such as a means of protecting children for profanity is an escapist approach by critics. Profanity is very excessive in today’s society, the world sex is said after an interval of six minutes on major television channels.

Many books have been questioned and challenged. Even as far as to banning them. But what exactly is a banned book and why are they banned? A banned book is a book that has been censored by an authority, a government body, a library, or a even school system. A book that has been banned is actually removed from a library or school system. The actual contextual reasons as to banning them is use of explicit violence, gore, sexuality, explicit language, religion, or dark times in history. On the non-contextual side of the reason why they are banned books are usually because with the best intentions to protect people, frequently children, from difficult philosophies and information. Teachers, or even more common adults, often censor books from

In one particular instance, a bill was passed in Tennessee stating that teachers cannot encourage “gateway sexual activity” (Nazaryan). This bill resulted in Sumner County officials banning Looking for Alaska from the curriculums of all schools due to the book’s single, brief oral sex scene. The Tennessean covered the news of the ban in their newspaper and quoted parents who agreed with the ban, stating that the school board was right in banning the book from the young and impressionable minds of children, who could possibly be so influenced by this blip of a scene in a book, that they might go and immediately engage in the same, or worse, sexual behavior. The newspaper, did however point out that there were alternate ways to address concerns regarding the book, such as offering alternate books to students whose parents were against it. John Green’s YouTube channel, “vlogbrothers”, features a video, “I Am Not A Pornographer”. In it, Green, referring to the ban, states that “there is one frank sex scene. It is awkward, unfun, and wholly unerotic.” (Green). Green goes on to say that the only reason for the existence of that scene is show a contrast between a very physical scene that contains no emotional intimacy and a very non-physical scene that is full of emotion. In another video, “On the Banning of Looking for Alaska”, Green says “text is meaningless without context” (Green) . Green is speaking to his opinion that books are banned most of the time because a parent decides to show a school principal or administrator a single excerpt or page of a book. Without proper context, that excerpt or page can appear to represent a very inappropriate book. Alternatively, if a reader were to assess a book in its entirety, while keeping an opening mind, they could glean important and valuable lessons from

Books are banned for multiple reasons. To ban something is to forbid or prohibit it (Ban). Some of these reasons are not very clear.

Public schools are becoming more laid back about what they teach in each subject to make it less uncomfortable for individuals to talk about; for example, sex education is taught in schools more in depth and at an earlier age today than in the past to make it easier for people to talk about sex in a more mature manner. Banning books that contain sexual content, vulgarity, and violence give children and young adults a reason to snicker about these topics when discussed in class because we are taught that these topics are not appropriate to talk about publicly. There are many factors that play a major role in how an individual perceives certain topics in books. If taught at an earlier age that these topics are suitable for mature

Throughout the century there has existed banned books which have been the objects of censorship or censorship attempts. The most common reasons for books to be banned is because of inappropriate language, sexual dialogue, containing violence and anti-theism. The book "Of mice and men" written by John Steinbeck has been banned in many different schools and libraries in the United States.

Once upon a time, in a world not far from here, there are students who are forced to miss their annual train ride to Hogwarts, lock the wardrobe to the magical land of Narnia, and walk through the English countryside themselves instead of upon the back of Black Beauty. Why are these students deprived of those occurrences? They live in America, the land of the free- except when it comes to the books they can read. In fact, many schools across America exercise the practice of banning books. Since 1982, libraries, parents, and schools have attempted to ban 11,300 novels, according to the American Library Association. The essentially innoxious books are challenged for an assortment of reasons, including use of malapropos language, graphic or explicit

According to one article, “Parents have argued that the use of profanity by the children in the novel were offensive and may even encourage their own children to use profanity.” J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye was “banned countless times for its profanity alone.” Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is an example of a book banned because of the homosexual content (as well as its “troubling ideas about race relations, man’s relationship to God, African history, and human sexuality”) As you can see, books are challenged very often, even these very famous and renowned

I understand why schools would want to remove these books because some contain inappropriate language or graphic details, but there isn't anything in those books that children nowadays have not already heard or seen before in movies or on the internet. My mom was always trying to prevent me from learning bad words, or the difference between a female or a male, but as a parent, she should have sat down with me and explained to me about the content that I was curious about. The material that is in banned books are only the opinions, thoughts, or explanations that covers issues that many people are too afraid to talk about. Unfortunately, it is also the material that people are sensitive about. These books are controversial issues that contain ideas that others are not willing to express for themselves.

An excellent example of a book in question containing sexual content is The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier, which ranked number 5 on the ACLU's list. Now considering the fact that this frequently banned book is written for young adults of middle and high school age, I'm sure the author included this content, and the often graphic language associated with such content, because it made the book more realistic and possibly because it made the novel more appealing to the age bracket. Fiction is not the only genre faced with banning and censorship. Educational books such as the sex education text It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris and The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsmanare under attack because they discuss sex-related topics. All I have to say about this is sexuality is a fact of life, not some forbidden subject.

The whole debate started when the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial written by Meghan Cox Gurdon where she described what she saw as a disturbing trend towards ‘darkness’ in young adult literature (Is Current). The article had a major backlash on Gurdon when people started to disagree and argue her statements, such as Maureen Johnson, author of 13 Little Blue Envelopes, who went to twitter to start the #YASaves (Young Adult) hashtag and getting thousands of replies within hours (Springen). Some people agreed with her statement, some of those people think that books should be banned from libraries so that their kids won’t read those books (Parents Challenge) Since the article, there have been many debates on the matter of books being appropriate for teen readers. I believe that young adult literature is not getting too dark for teen readers because the books help them face problems in their own lives, they make teens more aware of loss, and the stories show them that they are not alone in the issues they