Books Being Banned
- Sam McCarthy
- Sep 16, 2019
- 2 min read
Parents have been pushing certain books to be banned for decades now with some parents reasonings being; religious affiliations, racial issues, sexual situations or dialog, and even some would say presence of witchcraft. Parents are trying their best to protect their children by filtering what he or she learns within the walls of a public or private school. One of the most popular debates among parents is J.K Rowling’s novel series Harry Potter. Some parents believe that it is a means to teach children about magic and witchcraft, mainly parents of religious beliefs pose this literature as an issue in the school system. According to the graph on the Butler University, Libraries and Center for Academic Technology the top two reasons that books get banned from schools and libraries are offensive language and sexually explicate themes.
For some parents, the offensive language and graphic descriptions of war and sex too much for their children at young ages during their years of grade school. With examples like Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain which has multiple uses of profanities such as the n-word and racist themes and Perks of Being a Wallflower’s by Stephen Chbosky which has graphic descriptions of sexual behaviors as well as drug and alcohol abuse within the pages. School children usually are exposed to Kill a Mockingbirdby Harper Lee at the age of 13. This leads some parents to be concerned that racism and profanities. The book is written for adults through a “wise child” therefore some of the themes may not be hitting the nail on the head with students so young.
One of the most beneficial reasons schools and parents should allow their children to read these ‘banned’ books is because it starts a conversation. Back to the Stephen Chbosky example, Perks has those sexual themes along with the drugs and alcohol, it helps parents explain those types of situations to their children and young adults about the concerns they should have when encountering these situations and how to deal with them. Banning books is negative because the impact that sheltering and filtering what a child learns might hinder the learning experience a child needs to make decisions in the future. For example; The Outsiders by S.E Hinton has impacted so many middle schoolers lives that it has been cited as “the book that turned [student] into a reader”.
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