Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that certain persons find objectionable or dangerous. (Ediaz) When these self-appointed representatives decide a book is offensive in some way, they can challenge it and attempt to get it banned from the school library. The number of banned or challenged books each year is pretty significant. There are a good amount of classic books that are on the list which is quite frankly appalling. Books like; The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to name a few.
Banning classics like these would prevent today’s youth from learning very important cultural and historical knowledge. (Banned Books – Top 3 Pros and Cons) Information is a powerful tool, arguably the most powerful tool known to man. A lot of information is gained by reading, the more human race knows, the more we evolve. As well as intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence can come from reading some of the books that have been deemed ‘inappropriate’. They can help expand social understanding. The process of restricting books is an outdated idea, especially with google at everyone’s fingertips.
The association in charge of the country’s libraries is called the American Library Association (ALA). Their main purpose is to protect intellectual freedom, and remain neutral while doing so. The deciding officials should adhere to the precedent set by the ALA and respect both the right to freedom of speech as well as the right for all intellectual materials to be obtainable by anyone. Intellectual freedom is defined by the ALA as “the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction…” (Ediaz) A parent has the ability to censor what their children read. However, one parent should not have the right to control what someone else’s child reads. It is everyone’s right to decide that for themselves. If a parent wants to forbid a specific book they can simply not allow their child to bring it home. If the book was an assigned reading, the parent could even speak to the teacher and have them assign a different book to their child. Special circumstances are accommodated all the time in schools.
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Information is the most important tool the human race has. The more information we gain, the more we evolve as a species; similar to the way we evolved from Homo Sapiens (early humans) to Homo Sapiens Sapiens (modern Humans –us). The benefits a person can get from reading books is vast. Reading can expand a person’s general knowledge, vocabulary, and can improve their analytical thinking, memory and writing skills. Reading can also reduce stress. (Winter-Hébert) The more people learn, the better equipped they are to formulate their thoughts on a subject matter and come to their own conclusions. A lot of the books that have been challenged/banned are books that actually help a person become a smarter, more caring, and all around more well-rounded individual. Authoritarian societies impose numerous restrictions on what the general public can and cannot read. Ours, however, is a free country, one of 88 in the world, where everyone has the right to read whatever they please. Children in school are no exception to this, they were lucky enough to be born with the right to intellectual freedom.
One of the major benefits of reading is to broaden ones’ social understanding. According to the ALA books are being challenged and banned for a number of reasons. Some of which are offensive language, drugs, violence, sexually explicit, homosexuality, gender identity, bullying, suicide, offensive political viewpoint, and one that was “thought to lead to terrorism” and “promote Islam”. (Ediaz) Most censors, a person that tries to censor things, tend to think that ‘bad’ books beget ‘bad’ deeds, that there cannot be one without the other. They assume that as soon as a child reads a book he/she will immediately go imitate what they read. (Nilsen) If that happens, thn the adults around the child have failed to thoroughly educate the child on what is right and wrong.
Better social understanding can change the world. For example; If a straight, white boy coming from a wealthy family reads a book about the life of a poor black lesbian girl who has been bullied, abused and mistreated her entire life, that white boy may gain a better understanding of the struggles people with differing backgrounds might go through. The thought is that he, in turn, will be kinder and possibly even defend someone that is being mistreated. The more people that read books that expand their realm of understanding due to their limited life experience, the better. As a result, they may become more understanding people. Big picture, the world becomes a more loving and accepting place.
Restricting access to selected books in a school library is an outdated and ineffective strategy in the information age. Children are getting smartphones at a very young age these days. That gives them access to basically anything they want via the internet. In the old days, book burnings were conducted to prevent people from having access to whatever officials decided was offensive. Today, people try to restrict a book, they challenge it instead of burning it. In some cases the challenge wins, and the book is banned. Others are not successful, and the book stays on the shelf. Most children interested in reading a banned book likely have access to the internet and can simply find it there. It has become much harder to restrict the flow of information children have access to today. Typically, the more a parent tries to control a child the more the child wants to do what is forbidden, it’s human nature.
There is another option. Instead of trying to prevent children from reading a book that has bad language, racism, slavery, bullying, religion or anything else that one might find offensive or inappropriate, a parent could teach the child about it and why it is bad. If a parent is trying to shelter their child, it will only work for so long. At some point, the sheltered child turns into a young adult and will be faced with a situation that is out of their social understanding. Is it not better to have an informed person that has a decent understanding of different types of social situations, instead of having an ignorant person that is unaware of how to deal with unfamiliar situations when faced with them?
Works Cited
- “Banned Books – Top 3 Pros and Cons.” ProConorg Headlines, www.procon.org/headline.php?headlineID=005365.
- Ediaz. “Banned Book FAQ.” United for Libraries, 11 Sept. 2018, www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/banned-books-qa.
- Nilsen, Alleen Pace, et al. Literature for Today’s Young Adults. Pearson, 2014.
- Winter-Hébert, Lana. “10 Benefits of Reading: Why You Should Read Every Day.” Lifehack, Lifehack, 18 Oct. 2018, www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-benefits-reading-why-you-should-read-everyday.html.
