Banned Books Letter

Dear Ms. Berner,

Recently, the topic of censoring students’ reading choices and options has become very controversial. Should schools ban these mature reads from the innocent minds of these kids, or should schools allow the students to discover and educate themselves? I support the side of letting kids have the freedom to read what they please. The student body agrees that when a book becomes banned from a school, it not only hurts the students’ knowledge on the true ways of life out in the “real world,” but it is an extremely faulty method of protecting kids from the truth. This is why I argue that banning books in schools is wrong.

To start off, many schools need to learn that there is a boundary between protecting and hiding information from children. We might never know for sure, but most people can agree that there is definitely a difference between the two. Protecting kids means to temporarily not teach certain topics until the time/age is right to acknowledge the information. But hiding information is extremely different from protecting. When you hide something, it means you have absolutely no intention to explain or clarify these issues. Banning books falls under the category of hiding. When a school decides to ban a book, all they are really doing is avoiding the truth. But as everyone knows, you can’t run away forever - someday you will have to face the truth. Banning books only delays this process, which isn’t helping, but hurting the problem. The American Library Association (ALA) once said, “Books usually are challenged with the best intentions - to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information.” What the ALA is trying to explain is that banning books is being done for the wellbeing of everyone and the people around them. But still banning books is an example of unnecessary security. The knowledge that kids come into contact with in their 14 years of schooling needs to become more advanced as they move along in their depth of understanding. This cannot happen when high school students are stuck reading fairy tales and never anything more thought provoking. Of course, kindergartners should not be exposed to some of the same concepts that college students are exposed to, but that doesn’t mean that we have to tuck them away and never let them see how the real world is until they are at an appropriate age. Everyone can eventually understand all of the imperfections of the world at the proper moment.

Furthermore, not only is the overall concept of banning books unjust, but the actual method doesn’t even do its job successfully. Banning books totally ignores human nature. When someone tells you you can’t do something, that only makes you want to do so even more. Someone might not even have wanted to do it in the first place, but the sheer idea of breaking the rules makes the temptation too irresistible, that they must do whatever they are told not to. Take chewing gum for example. Just because there is a rule that no one can chew gum in school, the amount of people that do so automatically increases.  I think there is a pattern forming here. As guessed, these exact same ideas apply to reading. If you are told that reading this book isn’t allowed, you are going to, read it. Lissy Coleman, author of the book Banning Books 101, stated, “When an individual is told not to do something or play with an object, the mind provokes this message, making ignoring the task nearly impossible.” In other words, banning books isn’t even a successful way of handling reading restrictions. There will always be things that aren’t ideal for teaching, but there is no way around it, and banning books isn’t helping out the situation at all. Moreover, with the stubbornness of the human race and the curiosity of some people, banning books is truly a poor way of censoring literature.  

 On the other side of the argument, many people claim that the books found in schools today contain too many inappropriate messages and are way too detailed and descriptive for most young minds to fathom. This is why these people feel the need to not permit these books. So, the only appropriate way to cope with such situations is to not allow these books in schools. But banning books doesn’t solve these problems. There will still be these “dark images” everywhere, so taking books away that have them is useless. These themes and images can’t be avoided from these children forever. Someday, everything will backfire, and your innocent little kids will be exposed to the horrors of the world. This is why it doesn’t make sense to ban books from all of these students. Maybe these messages might be too advanced for some readers, but that doesn't mean that they are too advanced for everyone and should be banned. “These great novels both teach important values and educate children about world affairs and classic themes. Unfortunately, each of these novels has been banned due to their slightly advanced messages.” said Neha Riley, author of the article Against Banning Books. This statement shows that these classic books must be pretty bad in order to be banned, or at least censored. Since books contain graphic and inappropriate themes sometimes, they lead people to believe that all books are like this. These books contain problems that one might not want to learn about in extreme detail, as a result, the reader also loses all of the answers that are included in these books as well. Of course, the people who ban these timeless novels and stories don’t have the intention of limiting the learning of these students. But that is exactly what they are doing to students everywhere. These books hold such important themes and issues, that it is a crime to hide them. If the banning authorities would take some time to read these books unbiased, maybe they would realize that these works of art should be displayed for all to see, not tucked away in dusty shelves of the school basement.

As you can see, banning literature puts restrictions on students’ understanding of problems that people face every day in the world. The result of banning books is like a domino effect of confusion for all students. Banning books not only stunts students’ educational development but it also leaves them unaware of the struggles of others. Furthermore, banning books isn’t successful by limiting kids’ reading resources, they are forced to discover on their own the troubles of the world. “Something will be offensive to someone in every book, so you've got to fight it,” - Judy Blume.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Jane Kuntzman

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