Books that are considered immoral and banned are the books that show the world its own shame. They can “damage” a person’s lifestyle, they include racial terms, some mention sexual situations, some include witchcraft, others have the audacity to include violence and negative situations.
Take your problems or dislikes with a book to the American Library Association (ALA) and they will hold a meeting to decide if it should be banned in the United States.
Ironically enough a book about banned books was banned in the United States in 1981; Fahrenheit 451 of course. Some schools still have this book on their curriculum, even though the ALA still considers it a banned book.
To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Catcher in the Rye, and Maya Angelou’s autobiography: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings have all been banned. The iconic book Green Eggs and Ham was banned in California and China. Looking for Alaska was banned in 2012.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Slaughterhouse-five are all books that have been banned. Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl was banned in 1983 by the Alabama State Textbook Committee.The list goes on.
Yet, Maya Angelou became one of the most iconic writers in history. Dr. Seuss’s novels are still read to children across the United States. Back in September, the Guthrie Theater put on a play: To Kill a Mockingbird. These bannings are ruining freedom of expression, and are shutting doors for children, teenagers, and even some adults.
Anne Frank is an actual account of a young girl, hiding and trying to survive. Even though she was stuck in an attic, she still believed in the goodness of the human race. This is a very powerful account, and it can give people hope.
In 1983, Harriet the Spy was banned because Harriet taught children to “lie, spy, and talk back to their parents.” Children talk back to their parents all the time, they don’t need books to teach them those “skills”. Video games, are violent as well, yet not one of them has been banned.
Grand Theft Auto is a glorified game about stealing cars. Yet parents feel books can harm a child. There are things banned by the State Government, yet it’s not the stuff that can ruin lungs, or rip through flesh, or impair judgement, no it’s the stuff that “corrupts” others. Children can look up anything they want in America, say the website of the KKK, yet they will probably never read half of the books on the banned websites, simply because it “offends people.”
I believe there are novels out there that can make a profound impact on a person’s life, so limiting the freedom of books, quickly disintegrates that chance. Books are connections for others, and to ban the books that talk about the sex, violence, or suicide (real life things), is harming the child more than helping. It shows them that the problems in their lives don’t matter.
It shuts down the messages the books CAN and WILL deliver. It places blame and shame on authors, and drags their work through the mud. Banning books is just another way to limit how people see the world. Banning books is stopping others from discovering great literature. Just because some people “freak out”, doesn’t mean everyone acts the same way.
Banning books not only hinders a child’s educational development but also leaves them unaware of the true state of the world.