Harry Potter, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Hate U Give, This One Summer, Scars, The Handmaid’s Tale, Thirteen Reasons Why, Red Hood, All Boys Aren’t Blue, Junie B Jones, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, Winnie-The-Pooh. All of these books and so many more are considered “banned” in The United States. “A banned book is a book that government officials, various organizations, or sometimes just groups of individuals petition to remove from shelves, schools, and sometimes libraries.” according to the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University. And obviously, those groups think that they have made a good compromise. But personally I hate the whole idea of banned books.
Sometimes, books aren’t banned but instead called challenged. There are still a lot of challenged books some libraries don’t put on shelves because they are on the verge of being banned. Some of those currently challenged books my little sisters, cousins and even my friends loved to read when we were all younger, such as Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey, James And The Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, and Pinkalicious by Victoria Kan. I think the most obvious one is Captain Underpants. Barbra Goldberg was explaining why this book was “challenged” in an article for Reuters, “He doesn’t have any clothes on. Some parents saw this as a threat.” What they fail to see though was he was wearing the same amount of clothes as a baby. We have all seen babies, crawling around in their diapers. But we dont tell people not to look at babies!
According to Marshall University Libraries,The Hate You Give was banned over the summer of 2022. Last year my English class read this book together for a project. Personally, I saw nothing wrong with it at all. Then this year I was looking at a banned book list on Facebook and found out it had been banned in Missouri in the St. Clair School District. It has been banned because there was talk of murder, racism, and had an anti-police view. From what I can remember about the book, yes, there was a lot of racism. But there is just as much in real life. I have also noticed The Hate U Give is a lot like Dear Martin. I am currently reading Dear Martin in my English class. According to Marshall University Libraries, Dear Martin has been frequently challenged. Dear Martin has so far discussed multiple murders, a lot more racism than The Hate U Give, has anti-police views, and the main character had written about having inappropriate dreams about his crush.If Dear Martin isn’t banned, then The Hate U Give shouldn’t be either. The books are so much alike and both are such amazing books. Both of them inform readers on national problems while at the same time keeping them entertained. That’s why neither should ever be banned.
Look, I get it if you don’t want your kids and teens to read about that kind of thing. I get it if you don’t want to read something like that. It’s kind of scary. But do not deny other people reading. Eventually, everyone has to grow up. Everyone is going to learn about racism, drugs, cussing, abuse, and so much more. It’s not going to hurt anything if they find out about it a couple years earlier.
The only thing banning books is doing is underprepare the younger generations for what is to come. Parents, teachers, grandparents, and adults in general always tell us kids that “the world is a harsh place” and we “need to grow up.” How? We can only grow as much as you’ll let us.
I also want to bring up the Bible. Let’s think about the topics that the book talks about. In the Bible there are multiple stories and verses discussing rape, talking animals, animal worship, homosexuality, abuse, Substance use, and talk of evil. Books like To Kill A Mockingbird, Charlotte’s Web, The Hate U Give, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, and Harry Potter were banned for those reasons. And what’s worse, these books had at most maybe three of those topics, and we are no longer able to read them. But a book that people everywhere worship has all of those topics and many more, but nobody even bats an eye. I have to ask, if we are banning these books for a certain reason, why are we not banning others for the same reasons?
To sum everything up, with books like The Hate U Give or To Kill a Mockingbird, they were written to inform readers on real world problems. Younger people need to read about things like racism, so they know how bad it is and how it makes others feel. If we don’t have these books, we can’t grow as a civilized society. We won’t be able to become responsible, respectful adults. I know this is probably going to make me sound like your English teacher or the local librarian but, books really do shape our future. How will we shape the future without our tools? We can’t! If reading a certain book makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to read the book! Well, unless you need to read a book for a class. Then you should probably keep reading. But if not, if you’re just reading a book and decide you’re not comfortable, just put it down. Do not ruin it for other people. Let freedom read!