Neal Shusterman's Unwind: The Banning Of Books

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

Banned For as long as people have been printing their ideas onto paper, there has been conflict. Anytime someone voices their opinion, there will be those who disagree. This is an unavoidable truth. However, through the practice of banning books, it has been possible for certain individuals to deny others their right to freely choose what they wish to read.

The act of book banning could prove beneficial to the society because it could keep the students and youth of our culture away from books with a bad influence or things that would not help them in any way, shape, or form. “If a book is deemed offensive, some may argued, that it is promoting ideas which can have a detrimental influence on individuals (often children) and on society as a whole” (Aliprandini, Sprague 2016). This quote proves that those who believe that book banning is a good idea have valid reasons to believe so. Although books should not be banned, there is solid evidence that proves otherwise.

It is understood why somebody may think that books should not be banned at schools because by doing this parents are hurting their children by restrain their knowledge. When a quality book is banned, the children lose the opportunity to learn from that book. It is better supported that, some books should be banned from schools because they can introduce students to unacceptable topics and teach them bad or useless

It covers adult themes … that most students have not been exposed to and should not be provided by the school. It is a novel that has no life lesson to be learned”(Gomez). A middle school in Minnesota had this book in their library and parents did not approve of their children reading it, because it has explicit scenes in the book. The parents of this community had a meeting in December 2015, talking about if the book should be banned or not. When the meeting was over, the book Just One Day, was banned in Minnesota schools entirely, and parents were happy that the book was finally

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

From the very beginnings of literature, the act of banning books has long been a heated controversy. While almost everyone can say that there are definitely books that they do not want their children reading, the line between what is acceptable and what is not is much harder to define, especially in today’s world. In “How Banning Books Marginalizes Children” (2016), Paul Ringel argues that the current policy of banning books has had a negative impact on children because it has conveyed a message that rebuffs diversity and has contradicted the fact that the power to ban books should be used to “curate children’s choices with the goals of inspiring rather than obscuring new ideas.”

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

School boards, principals, and teachers have a responsibility for protecting the minds of their students by covering grade and age appropriate material in the classroom. However, does this given responsibility cover the act of banning books from their classrooms? As an advocate for each student, does the teacher not have a duty to introduce the students to a these words issues in order to help the student cope with the different problems in the world? How does a school decide which books should be banned and how much say does the teacher have what should be left up to the teacher? Some say that banning books from the classroom, we prevent them from learning about different controversial topics in a safe and secure environment. In this paper I reflect on my research question: Why do schools ban books in the classroom?

When certain books are given to the right age groups, then some situations won’t be so cruel. Such as “In 2006, some parents in a Kansas school district decided that talking animals are blasphemous and unnatural; passages about the spider dying were also criticized as being ‘inappropriate subject matter for a children’s book’” wouldn’t be such a big deal if the children were old enough to understand that the talking animals were not real and the spider dying is simply a part of life. (15 Books Banned For The Most Absurd Reasons Ever.) Also, children should be given the opportunity to read books that are about or from the perspective of children the same age. Even though some books may have a negative effect towards the readers, most books that teenagers read are about the same difficulties that lots of teenagers go through. Therefore, children can learn ways to deal with the conflicts they have in their lives. (Banned Books Week 2015)

Even though our world is getting more and more connected, censorship still remains one of the top issues that separate people from reading books. Books are the spreader of both bad and good knowledge and I believe that we should no longer contain or ban books just because they are offensive to certain groups in America. The debate on challenged books is a hot topic in America because the country is founded on a basis of freedom of speech.

Literary works are the foundation for education and are crucial for multiple reasons, some of which include that literature obtains a large variety of information that is at times not accessible to students by computers and teachers alone. Another advantage is adults and children alike improve their understanding and knowledge of certain topics whilst improving their intelligence of the language itself. Banning literary pieces of work is unjustifiable and proves to students that if something is not agreeable within a book, shielding its contents is the next honorary thing to do in order to prevent disruption. High schools should not ban books due to their excessive profanity, violence, sexual content and unagreeable topics because this restriction prevents young readers from developing a better understanding of the society they live in, and could counter act a new change and lessons to be learned.

The controversial act of banning books in the public school system is hindering children from growing in their intellect and identity. “Schools and Censorship: Banned Books” is an article released by People For the American Way, which explains that American’s were given one basic right and it is one that must be fought for and maintained daily. This is the freedom to express as each individual sees fit. Because of concepts that challenge the level of what is “appropriate” for students, millions are being deprived of powerful works of expression which possess the power to shape students in who they are and who they can become.

Some parent’s argue that the book should be banned but their argument can be overturned. Parents continue to argue about the violence that the book has, but they soon are going to have to notice that the world is filled with violence and if you’re going to ban a book because of the PG-13 violence in the book you should think about what revolves around you every day. The opposition also argues that the book causes nightmares but without evidence that the book was the thing that cause the child to have the nightmare or was it something that your child seen on TV before bed or thought about we will never no because there’s no evidence the book caused the nightmare. Parents in the situation seem as if they want the best for child and try to avoid and hide their child from the violence but as they grow older there are going to be more harsh violence around them in the real world and the book I think is preparing and maturing them for the

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