The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Bridge to Terabithia, To Kill a Mockingbird, Junie B Jones, The Giver, Harry Potter, The Color Purple, and Catcher in the Rye, are a few of the of the hundreds of titles that are being challenged and banned from public schools every day.
You may or may not have read any of these particular books, but I promise you that you have at least heard of one of these titles.
We can not hide our children and young adults from everything. Books are being put on this banned list supposedly so we can "protect" our children from being exposed to certain controversial topics that don't want to be talked about or certain households don't approve of. Why would you punish everyone just because a few don't like it? If we delete these books completely then we will be stopping children from reading books that they could connect to or even just really enjoy.
When did we make it to where we are trying to stop our children from reading? I can understand if it is a picture book that is a manual on how to murder innocent citizens then yes we should delete that book from the system, but if a particular book has sexual imagery would or should that stop a child or young adult from looking at the overall message of the book? That message of the book could change or impact them in such a positive way that no other book could do.
Reading has always been something I love to do in my free time. It has opened me up to so many ideas, extended my vocabulary, and helped me make a lot of the bookworm freinds that I have. I know that I personally have benefitted from reading a variety of books including a book that has recently been challenged called Looking for Alaska by John Green. This particular book is about a humorous and quirky romance where a boy heads off to boarding school and he finds his true love.
This book is being challenged because of the topic of "sexual experimentation."
The book does talk about this, but I don't think this book is encouraging sexual exploration at all. The sexual imagery in the book will not make the child or young adult run up to someone and start having sex with them either. It simply is a part of the journey that we are taken on in this particular tale.
Sex is also a topic that we should talk about with our young adults so they can know how their parents feel about it than just what the world says about it. These books can make your kid raise that question and open up the opportunity to talk to your kids about it. It also talks about the topic of suicide which I personally believe is extremely important for children to be educated on because they don't need to fill as if they are the only ones in that situation when they are feeling depressed or lonely.
We should reinforce in them that they aren't alone and a lot of people are here for them.
That is something that most of these banned books do. They introduce children to characters and ideas that they may be able to personally connect to. It makes them feel as if they aren't the only person out there feeling this certain way. We need to start embracing other peoples differences instead of shutting them down.
I will always support any form of reading banned or not. If you agree then try to participate in Banned Books Week where people will read books on the banned list in protest of it.
I read banned books. Do you?
