Precious Knowledge: Using Banned Books

Many school districts do not have “manga”or “anime” banned (Debate.org). This style of literature is often considered non educational. Books should at least have censorship when profanity or have sexually explicit content are used. Reading this content as a student is 100% unnecessary. In a study done in 2000-09 by the American Library Association, about 1,250 books were challenged because of offensive language. Around 1,600 books were challenged in that same study for being sexually explicit (Butler.edu). During this, almost all books that were banned were either in school libraries or schools. A common example of a banned book is Harry Potter by J.Kk. Rowling. This book has a “presence of witchcraft”’(Butler.edu). In many people's’ minds, witchcraft is extremely bad, and completely unnecessary to discuss those topics. Since many people are against witchcraft, if that was to be discussed in schools, awful consequences for teacher as well as student could result.

Although times are changing and society is learning to adapt to the free minds of the younger generations, much is still restricted from the public eye. For example, a list of “banned books” exists containing hundreds of novels that have been removed from libraries and classrooms. Before the books become banned, they are challenged by a group of people who feel strongly that the book is not appropriate for today’s curriculum. Among these books is Looking for Alaska by John Green, which should not be banned because it implements the use of upper-level vocabulary, involves real-life problems and solutions, and causes readers to look at life from a new perspective.

IDS Op-Ed Review: Banning Books Harms Student The article “Banning Book Harms Student” was written by Maddy Kein, a student of Indiana University. In the article, the author stated his opinion on banning books with sensitive contents is in fact doing harms rather than being beneficial to the students. Author used an example of the mistreatment of a controversial and well-known book, “To Kill a Mocking bird” to demonstrate people will take action against a book if they find it can be offensive or cause emotional discomfort for some people. Then author offered his counterargument as respond to the statement made by the the public school district of Biloxi to elaborate that we should not sacrifice the accuracy of the content for comfort.

Many parents monitor what their child is reading. When something is brought home that they don’t agree with, this is when the anger comes out. Every parent believes the library’s policies should be set “by the people” (Berry). Parents believe when a book is “threatening” towards their child it should immediately be removed from all shelves and forbid from being read by any other students. This situation happens quite often, but in realization no child should be told what they are allowed or not allowed to read by another student's parent. Some parents have even began to call them “challenged” books because they believe the term is too harsh, and sounds too much like censorship. Once again the term fear manifests itself; parents are extremely afraid of what their child can find in between the pages of a book. Many of the times the parent will not read the book, but rather read the premise and decide from there. Parents do not realize that the book they are reading could be the most important books that child or teen could ever read. “Words and ideas... will help them fight their monsters” (Finan). Children will never know how to be the best that they can be unless their parent’s guide them in the right direction, and that direction is towards the restricted section of the

Banned Books: Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers The history of banning books goes back to the year 496 when the Catholic Church published a list of writings which came to be called the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Index of Prohibited Books (“Index Librorum Prohibitorum” n.p.). That was before the invention of moveable type and the printing press, so the “books” referred to were parchment and lambskin hand-copied manuscripts. Nevertheless, the desire and action of banning books is nothing new.

Many significant novels have unfortunately been challenged/ banned at a certain point in time. Most of these literary classics face this because some contain sexual references, religious intolerance, and inappropriate language. In some cases, books are being pulled off shelves because people believe that they were “tangibles of instruction” or the reason being was as a precaution towards a possible public attack which took effect in Tucson for the Mexican American Studies (source:8). Another case is the Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education; Christian sewed the board because they believed that the required textbooks hurt their beliefs (Source:8).

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

According to Jenni White, a former public school science teacher, "Numerous studies on the use of graphic material by students indicate negative psychological effects," including having "more casual sex partners and having sex at younger ages. " However, Emma Cueto, who is freelance journalist based in Boulder, comes to the conclusion that, “trying to "protect" teenagers from information about sex or realistic portrayals of human sexuality does them no favors. In much the same way that abstinence-only education makes teens more likely to get pregnant because they don't understand how to keep themselves safe…” Cueto goes further and explains, “making sex and sexual relationships an off-limits, taboo topic can leave teens without a basis for understanding how sexuality and romantic relationships do and can operate, and what constitutes healthy sexuality.” In addition to Cueto’s refutation, students will still be surrounded by other students who already have sexual interactions, therefore, there is no correct way to protect a student from “graphic” material. All in all, book banning is detrimental to everyone because it takes away a basic right from people, frequently challenged books often provide great perspectives of people from the past and books on sensitive topics in the world help people develop empathy.

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

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

The problems with banned books has been a controversial issue between parents as well as adults. The concerns that parents have are with the fact that these certain books are to be banned to keep their kids from being exposed to some of the ways of the world. Some of the concerns that these parents have are with usage of some derrogatory words or lanuguage not preferrred by some parents. The things that parents fail to realize is that by law, a librarian has the responsibility that they must uphold; including their responsibilty to the stocking of books on their shelves. I would take the side of the librarian because their position would be worthless because their rights would be useless, and their job would

“Book Banning” may seem like an issue of the past, but, in fact, it is still a very pertinent issue in the U.S. today. These classic books have been banned at one time or another: Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, Huckleberry Finn, The Grapes of Wrath, The Harry Potter series. You’re probably wondering how these, extremely famous, books can be so censored in America today. There are many reasons that are given in regards to book censorship. For instance, language or profanity, violence, sexual explicitness, or “uncomfortable” topics, such as rape and race relations. Christian groups have requested that a countless number of books, with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer (LGBTQ+) themes, be taken out of schools and libraries The banning and censorship of books can happen in many places and ways; taking them off school reading lists, or even out of libraries and bookstores.

“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.

It is my belief that since by the time the child is required to read such literature in school, they are at an age where they can distinguish between things that should and should not be said and it is the job of the parents to educate the child that just because they say it in a book does not mean he or she should.Another subject common to banned and censored books is sexuality.

Every year, hundreds of books are challenged, banned, and/or removed. According to American Library Association, more than 11, 300 books have been challenged, banned, or removed in schools and libraries across the country since 1982. The reasons why books are banned were discussed during an interview between Time For Kids and the director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, James LaRue. "Books are banned because they fall under one of these categories of controversy: Religion, Sexual Content, Profanity, or Race." (LaRue, 2016). Many books that have been banned, at one point in time, fall under one these categories. Some more well-known books included: The Holy Bible, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill