In honor of banned books week, I
thought that I would write a post on censorship, and some of the most commonly
banned books today, and the “reasons” why they came under fire.
Censorship is basically when a certain
books gets criticized by commonly a group of parents or a foreign government
system, who think that a particular book sends a bad message to the target
audience, which is usually somewhere between first grade to high school
students. Most books are censored for drug use, sexual content, swearing, homosexuality,
and most commonly religious views, in particular “satanic influences”. Now,
these things seem pretty reasonable to ban books over, but these things often
are taken way out of hand. For example, these books below are only some of the
books that were under fire for being “inappropriate”.
Winnie
the Pooh by A.A. Milne
So apparently this book was banned
in schools all across the United States, as recently as 2006 because talking
animals are apparently considered an “insult to God”. I am not really sure why,
and I don’t know who came up with this idea, but I’m pretty sure that the
author didn’t write this book in order to offend God. Several institutions in
the UK and Turkey also claim that Piglet is an insult to Muslims and several
other institutions claim that the book revolves around Nazism. Where people get
these ideas, I do not know.
Green
Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.
Yes, this is the children’s rhyming
book with colorful pictures that everyone has read at least once in their life.
This book if anything should be praised for showing children not to be picky
eaters and to try something new once in a while, but no, that’s not how some
people see it. Up until 1991 this book apparently has undertones of “homosexual
seduction”. Yes, I am being dead serious. This book was banned in parts of
California for just that reason.
The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
In 1928, this book was banned in
all libraries of Chicago for having an “ungodly influence” and for “depicting
women in strong leadership roles”. Number one, I know that this was back in
1928, but how sexist can the government really get? I mean come on, banning a
book for showing women in strong leadership roles? Women being independent is
almost as bad as talking animals (note sarcasm). Also, in 1957, the Detroit
Public Library banned this book because it has “no value for children of today”.
Ok sure, like Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy Kid have such value for
kids today.
Anne
Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
This was banned in several schools
up to 2010 for many reasons including “sexual content and homosexual tendencies”,
being “too depressing”, and “pornographic tendencies”. All I have to say is
what, what, and what?? Where in this book is there explicit sexual content anywhere?
Ok, so I get the too depressing part, but like it or not, this is a part of our
history. It may be depressing or sad, but children should learn about it so
things like the Holocaust don’t happen again. This goes hand in hand with
schools not wanting to teach students about the Holocaust or slavery anymore
because they think that we can just erase that part of the world’s history by
simply not talking about it. Like or not, it’s already happened, and we can’t
change the past no matter how much we want to, so instead of attempting to
erase the past, we might as well embrace it and learn from our mistakes.
The
Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
So if you know the basics about
Harry Potter, if would be pretty safe to assume that this book would be
criticized for its witchcraft and satanic tendencies, and you would be correct.
Many, many, many, Christian organizations had this book banned for those very
reasons. Yes this, book centers around witches and wizards, and yes they teach
subjects like divination at Hogwarts, but this book isn’t telling children to
go out and worship the devil, and the divination class at Hogwarts is portrayed
as being a joke more than anything. This book came under more fire from
Christians than Phillip Pullman’s book The
Golden Compass which is literally criticizing the church directly the
entire book. People can’t even make the excuse that the criticisms it made were
indirect, naming the evil government the Magisterium was a pretty big hint and
these same people went out of their way to ban Green Eggs and Ham for “homosexual
seduction”.
13
Reasons Why by Jay Asher
This is one of the more recent
books that came under fire, it being a more current book, aimed for the young
adult age group. Having read this book, I understand where people are coming
from, banning the book for sex, drugs, alcohol, and bringing up the topic of
suicide. But mostly, this book was banned for being unsuited for its age group.
For one, the age group this is directed towards is high school students, who have
already gone through sex-ed and the drugs and alcohol talk. All the topics in
this book, aren’t things that a high schooler hasn’t experienced in either
other books or movies, or even real life. Saying that a book containing drugs,
sex, and suicide is unsuited for high school students is like saying that they
think high school is filled with rainbows and sunshine and chastity and sobriety,
which even though that would be great, is very far from the truth.
And last by not least…
The Merriam Webster Dictionary
This was banned in 2010 for contain
the definition of oral sex. Ok really? It’s a dictionary for goodness sake! The
definition in the dictionary is far better than the one a kid is going to learn
from his friends or even Google for that matter.
So what do you think? Should books
be banned in schools? If so, which ones should and who had the authority to say
what is appropriate for children and what isn’t?
~K.M.D.
Sources taken from:
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