Banned Books

Talking about banned books to any bibliophile can get them fuming quickly. The idea that superiors can create an opinion themselves about a book and ban it for everyone else is a little ridiculous. One argument some people propose when it comes to challenged books (books that are on death row) is if the people who want to ban the books have read them at all. The American Library Association has a whole website dedicated to banned books with lists of books that have been challenged or banned and ways that people who love these books can fight against them. For example, I am a classic novel lover so I hit up the list of challenged classic books. The list had 46 books on it, and out of all these books I have read or want to read 31 books. This goes to show that not only am I reading these books, but so are other people, no matter what the content of the book. Books can be banned for sexual content, drug usage, or for language. In defense, most of these themes that are considered banned are relevant to everyday life. I can vouch that not a day goes by where I hear at school something about sex, drugs, or language (or all three, unfortunately). For example, Looking for Alaska by John Green was up to being banned for it’s depiction of sex, even though it is a book about curious teenagers. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain has been banned in schools across America for its repeated use of the ‘n-word’. I can realize that some parents don’t want their children to read this but they need to understand that that was the language used at the time, it is a part of American culture. Some blogs I have seen on WordPress blog on Banned Books Week, seven days where banned books are challenged for being challenged or they post about books that have been banned yet still contain wonderful things waiting to be read. Banned books are a controversial topic and I think that no books should be banned because every book has something special in it, no matter it’s content.

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