Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants

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.

When parents realized thattheir children would be exposed to such things, some immediately publicized their outragethrough the press, complaining to Boards of Education, hoping to ban the book or have it simplyremoved from school districts and libraries.In Burlington, North Carolina,

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

Although adult books are banned, children's books can be banned also for the same reasons. Dr. Seuss has books banned across the world from Green Eggs and Ham, to The Butter Battle. Through the parents and even the governments have entered into the banning of books. Also, books with talking animals have been banned in other countries, taking half of the popular children books many kids grew up with. Schools can even ban books due to opposing views, sex, language , or even religion. In the quote from Butter Battle by Dr. Seuss "Drop this bomb on the Zooks just as fast as you can. I have ordered all Yooks to stay safe underground while the Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo is around." (Dr. Seuss, 74). Behind the banning was the government, due to storyline being based off WWII, fearing children would become upset. During WWII students learned how to duck and cover if a bomb ever hit, and others were told to go underground. Though kid books are banned for different reasons than an adult book, the banning are influential to readers of today.

The motives behind the banning of “The Adventures of Captain Underpants”, is absurd. The opponents say the book contains offensive language, partial nudity, violence and misbehavior which is not fit for

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

This is about banned books in schools across America and what they have in common. TKM is a classic novel about the 1950s and parents love to read it, but don’t like when their young children read it. Parents don’t like how many racial slurs and the sexually charged themes in it. “Many of these objections come from parents, school administrators or advocacy groups who contend that its racially and sexually-charged themes are inappropriate for young readers”(Downs). This quote shows that not just parents want it to be banned from schools. The school administrator themselves want it out of their school also. Another commonly banned book from schools is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. A parent complained to the school about the use of inappropriate language in the book because she doesn’t like her child reading words like that. “a formal complaint was made by the mother of a biracial teenager. At the centre of the complaint was the use of the N-word, which appears frequently” (Kean). Another commonly banned book in schools is Uncle Tom’s Cabin. What all these books have in common is that they all have racial slurs in them. Some of them have sexually charged themes  also which are the reasons why parents do not like their young kids to read them. A mother said, “My son struggled to read the racist language, telling the Accomack County public schools board: There’s so much racial slurs and defensive wording in there that you can’t get past that.” (Kean). This showing that it is also hard for the students to read also. If the kids have trouble reading the book also then they have an even stronger vote to get it

Throughout time, countless great children’s books have been published and then loved by many. To name a few, Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. What do these three books have in common? They were all published as children’s books, then kept out of their hands for numerous reasons. Parents and teachers claimed these books were unfit for children’s reading. They either introduced topics that were not open to them yet or went against their lifestyle. All around the world, great books are being kept from children for doltish reasons. They are being censored, then banned from their eyes. Taking this literature from them is ruining their childhood; it is preventing children from learning about the world and being ready for it. Censoring in children’s books needs to become less harsh or else they are going to grow up in a sealed world.

Across the globe, the classic story, Of Mice and Men is banned in public schools because of conflicting opinions on the book. The banning of Of Mice and Men is very common because of the dark and depressing tone and irrelevant word choice. Parents call school districts complaining about the unbefitting context that their teens are reading, and schools have no choice but to ban them. Although the language used in Of Mice and Men, can be considered inappropriate and vulgar to some, censoring books in schools, is a violation of the first amendment, as well as hides teens from the hardships of life, and disconnects teens from meeting inspiring characters.

On the other hand, parents fear that reading this novel will give their children ideas to rebel against them, and consequently cause them to lose control of them. Ultimately, it is the counter-culture attitude and the distaste for any kind of authority that governs the novel that leads many to shy away from exposing the material to teenagers.

You may not realize this but our government plays a large role in governing what sort of information America’s children are exposed to. The average American child receives the majority of their knowledge and education from school, so the information that is allowed to be taught is a very delicate and controversial issue. Literature is often altered or banned from public schools and libraries because they contain of vulgar language, excessive violence, or connotations of drugs and sex. The reasoning behind this is that these are potentially dangerous ideas, and if children were to be exposed to them that they would be corrupted and manipulated by them. There is a contradictory school of thought on the

"Censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them” (Halse).

Red and others said. For that reason it was banned in different schools all over the United States like california porterville high school (1992), New York John Jay High School (2000); In Norwood High School Colorado, after the book was removed from reading lists and to be destroyed, the parents asked to burn it - The book was removed by the superintendent after two parents complained about profanity. He gave all copies of the books to the parents who "tossed them in the trash." The superintendent later apologized after students organized an all day sit-in at the school gym.

The book “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” by John Boyne is a story about a young boy in 1943, during World War Ⅱ. This young boy’s name is Bruno. Bruno lives in a 5 story home with his sister named Gretel, his mother, his father, two maids, and a cook. His house has a window he can look out of from which he can see all of Berlin. Bruno states the best part about the house is the banister in which he would slide from the top floor to the bottom floor where you jump off.

“The Breakfast Club” characterizes this phenomena by depicting the “jock, the brain, the basketcase, the princess, and the juvenile delinquent”. In the movie each character is representative of the social class to which they belong. The “jock” signifies the sports star that can do no wrong, but the movie character bullies another boy and when caught all he received was detention. Although on the other hand the delinquent who is a dope smoking, foul mouthed punk, received the same punishment for talking back to a teacher. Administrators and teachers are very quick to meet out severe punishment to those students that they have deemed worthless, while good kids get a slap on the wrist. The movie’s jock is placed in Saturday detention, instead of being suspended, so that he may wrestle in an upcoming tournament; a case in which Hollywood makes an accurate depiction. This is the “holding of power” that Wehlage and Rutter spoke about in their study, High School and Beyond. Students who receive better treatment seem to do better in school when subjected to “an orderly environment, a committed and caring faculty, and an emphasis on academic pursuits”(Nieto,100).