Should books ever be banned? When they talk about banning a book, they mean a school or library has removed it because some of the contents in the book could be considered offensive or inappropriate. You could still purchase some of these books online or at a bigger bookstore, but a library or school will not carry them anymore. Some commonly banned books have been banned for a while, like: “Animal Farm” and “1984” by George Orwell and “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury. A more recent book that was banned or challenged was “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank. It was edited, and some pages were left out of the published version.
There are so many other banned or challenged books that schools can no longer teach. A lot of the books that are banned involve history and should be read in schools. How are kids supposed to learn about important parts of history if they are not allowed to be taught? Now, a lot of those books are fiction, but they do include aspects of history.
Why are these books being banned anyway? A lot of these books are being banned because of inappropriate topics, profanity, drugs and other things. But if kids cannot learn about these topics in high school, when will they ever learn about them? In my opinion, they are missing knowledge that could further help understand the history of not only the United States but also other countries. Yes, a history class would teach them about what happened in the United States and other countries, but I think this gives you a more in-depth look into what was going on.
As someone who never read “1984” by Orwell in high school, but still learned about all the topics in the book like nationalism, censorship of records to hide something and others in a history class I think reading the book would have helped me personally understand the meaning of each topic more in depth. I did read “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury in high school, and it did have an extremely strong message against censorship and crushing the idea of free thought and knowledge by burning books.
That brings us back to the original question: Should books ever be banned? In my opinion, I say no. If you do not learn about these topics in high school, you will learn about them out of high school whether you go to college or go straight to the workforce. These books either give you a glimpse of history or paint a picture of a very distant, made-up future. You would want to learn about the history of your country or another country sooner than later. With books that help with that being banned, you could be missing details you never even knew about. Why would you ban a book that includes versions of history that a high schooler will learn later in life?
Some not-so-serious books are banned in certain states and countries like “Winnie the Pooh,” “The Lorax,” “Where the Wild Things Are” and the dictionary. These books are banned for many different reasons from “Winnie the Pooh” and people thinking a talking pig is offensive to people who view the pig as a sacred animal. “The Lorax” was banned because a school district in California thought it was a negative representation of the logging company. The dictionary is being banned in some school districts in Alaska because children can look for inappropriate words.
Books are being banned for so many reasons each day. These reasons go from being offensive to logging companies to giving people the wrong idea about the government and censorship. Some books are just plain inappropriate for anyone to read, but the books that give another version of history or paint a picture of a made-up future where the government burns books to prevent further knowledge. Books that make up a story of a guy cutting down trees to make his own huge business should not be banned, as that teaches us a lesson. Books that give you a different version of history, that you would not learn about in a history class should not be banned. We should read these books and take in the lessons they give us.
