Cons Of Book Censorship

Providentially, committed teachers, students, parents, librarians, among other individuals have evolved to challenge the existing ideologies on book banning (Niccolini & Alyssa 22). According to the American Library Association (ALA), a good percentage of these challenges are steered by parents. Public libraries, school and university libraries, businesses as well as classrooms across the world have made great attempts of trying to ban literature on quite a regular basis. According to the executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, attempts steered towards book-banning or censorship are encountered on a weekly basis. Banned books and articles range from centuries-old classics to contemporary bestsellers, from historical and biographical nonfiction to fictional narratives and finally from adults’ erotica to children fairy tales. This paper therefore seeks to highlight circumstances that a book should be banned or challenges and the considerations to be put into account in such decisions.

Censorship: Censorship is examining books and taking bad parts out of them (like a publishing company).

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,

Censorship can take different shapes depending on the public school system: Schools can give teachers a list of acceptable books to teach, just provide guidelines, or leave it up to the teachers to judge which books are appropriate (Agee, 1999). Teachers are often very nervous about including texts that are not traditional or specifically approved by the school, especially because of the highly publicized cases of teachers whose careers have been ruined because of censorship debates in courts and school systems (Agee, 1999).

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank was banned in Wise County, Virginia because of “objections to sexually offensive passages” (American Library Assiciation). The natural changes that women go through in life were belligerent to these people, even though it was only the honest opinion of a young girl. In cities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Virginia and Texas banned Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain because it was considered “dangerous with its objectionable language and ‘racist’ terms and content” (American Library Association). That all happened at one point or another and to move on we must learn to accept the racism of the past not hide it from children. The same with another classic banned from cities in New York, Illinois, Missouri, and in Warren Township Schools, Indiana, this book is one of my favorite books in the world, and to think that it could be banned because of because of “profanity and [the] undermining of race relations” is depressing (American Library Association). This book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Without these books much of the children would be ignorant of the past, only learning what history sees

“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight,” Stephen Chbosky. Books open up people’s minds to new ideas and allow people to the world in a new light. Banning books only makes one want to read those books more- to learn and poder over the controversial issues. One controversially banned novel is the The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This book while still has lessons to teach people in today’s society, including the ignorance of racism to addressing modern day issues; therefore The Adventures of Huckleberry FInn should not be banned.

The parents of our communities tend to fall on either side of the issue, divided into pro and anti-censorship groups. The big question that everyone is asking is if a student were to open a book and read about drugs, sex, or violence will this make a child more susceptible to this kind of behavior? Our United States board of education believes so, and has installed censorship safety precautions in the literature that is available in public schools and libraries. According to the American Library Association between 1990 and 2000 6,364 challenges against books were brought to Office of Intellectual Freedom by parents, teachers, and different pro-censorship organizations. The grounds for these challenges were that the books contained sexually explicit material, offensive language, satanic references, violence, homosexuality, or promotion of a religious belief. Some books that were on this list include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (for incessant use of the n word), The Catcher and the Rye (Depicts teenage depression, prostitution and use of the f word) and Go Ask Alice (Instances of Drug Use, sex, and suicide. People that are pro censorship argue that no books are being banned. That, in fact, you can buy those same books in many bookstores or other places. They argue that is their right, as taxpayers to decide what their children should have

When controversial books are banned from schools, teachers become limited by what they can discuss in class. “Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear” (Blume). Books with questionable topics and content are not meant to be banned. They are meant to be available and there for students to read so that they can form their own opinions and share them with their peers.

Every year at the end of september, (since 1982) the US has Banned Books Week. Which essentially means a week where stores and libraries display and discount books that have either been challenged or altogether banned in the school curriculum at some point in time. I actually didn’t know that this was a national tradition until this year, when I visited my local bookstore, (Scout and Morgan), and spoke to the person at the counter about it. There was a little display and everything and among the pile of unfit titles were: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984. I had actually visited with my mom, (age 51), and older brother, (age 35). When they saw the books that had been banned they couldn’t believe their eyes, and kept saying, “No that’s not true I read this in school.” It took me about 3 times to finally convince them that these books aren’t apart of the curriculum anymore. Though many high schoolers have heard of these titles before and have been told many times that they are classics, without being required of encouraged to read them in a classroom environment, we might never be able to experience them. Banning books in the classroom because of a parent or administers personal belief not only prevents children from reading epic classics in literature, but also creates a divide between generation in the information they learned about the world around them. When parents have a different definition of things such as censorship

Books are usually banned because someone has the opinion that the material in the book is bad or inappropriate. The reason to ban books because they make “people feel ‘uncomfortable’” is not a good enough reason to “not to talk about a subject that isn't talked about enough”. The classic To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee was banned in Biloxi, Mississippi, which was being read in an eighth-grade class to “teach adolescents that caring for others should not be dependent on race or education”. This shows that the banning of a book may make some people more comfortable, but it also takes away a great way to learn about other’s experiences and points of views.

Books are said to be teachers, playing an important role in providing information. The lessons and information taught in these books can initiate many thoughts and influence the choices one makes depending on the information that the book feeds the mind. A way that is used to control and regulate the books that the young people of society read and the knowledge there for them to grasp is through the use of censorship. Book censorship is the practice of officially examining books and suppressing unacceptable parts. Censorship is most often placed on books because of religious reasons, inclusion of sexual content, and as well as offensive language to prevent society from engaging intolerable acts.

Ever since the first book was published, there has always been some books that people cannot read for their strong language, sensitive topic, or explicit content. This has lead to the current problem we have today, censoring books. Last year there were about 300 books banned in the in the United States. Even well known authors have banned books. For example, Harper Lee, J.D Salinger, and even J.K Rowling. In addition, there are those who say that censoring books protect our children from explicit content. Sooner or later these children are going to find the truths about this world and will not know how to react. That is why if censorship continues, then this will harm our society from being able to grow even further.

Censorship of books is a very controversial and frequently debated topic. Many teachers, parents, and school boards believe that they need to censor books in order to keep children away from profanity, sex, and immorality books which are considered offensive and vulgar. However, many of these people do not see that, by censoring books, important life lessons are being left out of the formative years which will have a negative effect on children as they, inevitably, come in contact with these situations anyway. By censoring literature in schools, students become stunted in their ability to understand social issues and talk about them maturely, for if they only read the sugarcoated and “appropriate” books, they will not be able to understand the “real world” as it is: offensive and vulgar.

The censorship of books is a division of censorship that, apart from Internet censorship, receives the most publicity. Banning books is the most popular form of such censorship. Many banned books are literary classics,

Censorship, according to Google, is “the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts”. Censorship happens when someone,be it a parent, a teacher, feels uncomfortable with their child(ren) reading something, and decide it’s unfit for all children, including high-schoolers.