There has been discussion about banning or censoring books within the ALA. Many of these books are not only beloved stories like “Harry Potter” and “Percy Jackson,” but also literary classics that have taught generations before us important lessons about society and human nature, like George Orwell’s well-known book “1984.”
Both my family and I have been avid readers for most of our lives; throughout my childhood, I have been able to read almost whatever I wanted and was able to ask questions. Reading has allowed my family to have many discussions about the topics we have read that otherwise we may have never had. One of the books that caused a discussion about freedom was The Handmaid’s Tale which is now on the challenged book list possibly barring another person from having the type of conversation we did.
There are two stages to banning books. The first is for it to be challenged, which means that someone had sent a formal request for a book to be removed from libraries or places of education. The second is for the book to be fully physically taken out of curriculums and libraries. There are many reasons to challenge a book and they are mostly about supposedly protecting other people from sexually explicit material, strong or coarse language and even someone believing it is unsuited to be read by an age group. Children should read books that are appropriate for their age; what those books are should be decided by the parents, not anyone else.
Senate bill 226 requires “local school boards to adopt a complaint process for parents,” which means that if a parent makes a complaint about a material in schools the board must investigate it. Often times the person investigating is the school principal who is left on their own to decide what qualifies as appropriate and if it should be taken out. This is a problem because the one person to decide if a book is right for schools will likely use their own thoughts about what a kid should be exposed to allowing for a unfair regulation of information. Georgia is also a republican state known for being more picky about what information is shown to children, so this increases the chances of a book being banned in a school library.
One of the many trends I noticed from looking through the lists of challenged or censored books is that many are about self discovery, revolution, marginalized groups, injustices and many more topics that people who are not as accepting to those who are different try to avoid. By avoiding these topics children, teenagers and even adults have to discover and learn by themselves through books. If we as a community choose to challenge or censor these books, we will limit curiosity, discovery and exploration from reaching the people who may need it most.
Many of the books that are being pushed to be taken out of libraries are about characters that children may relate to. A younger kid seeing another who is just like them can be incredibly beneficial to how they see and deal with issues. Kids may see themselves or their family in books like “A Plan for Pops,” a children’s book about having two grandfathers from one side of the family, allowing them to want to be more like the characters or reassure them their differences aren’t a bad thing.
Continuing to limit the information that can be acquired by books wouldn’t be a good thing, so we should use our voices to speak out about it. When the talk about banning or censoring books comes up, we should speak out and defend our right to knowledge and discovery.
