“The books that the world call immoral are the books that show the world its own shame,” famous author Oscar Wilde once said. In Lois Lowry’s controversial young adult novel The Giver, twelve-year-old protagonist Jonas lives in a dystopian world in which citizens in the Community have their career, spouse, and children picked for them by the Elders. The Community is dominated by the concept of Sameness where individuality, emotion, and color do not exist. In fact, everyone is assigned the same birthday. Once children turn the age of twelve, they are assigned their career path. Jonas learns that he is selected to become the Receiver of Memory, an honorary role, they call it. The Receiver is the person who holds all memories, good and bad, in order to maintain Sameness in the community; in short; the Receiver carries the burden of emotions and memories for everybody. The previous Receiver, who is now known as the Giver, transmits memories of pain and hope, loss and love to Jonas during his training, which changes the way Jonas views his Community. During the duration of his training, readers come across conflicts of euthanasia, sexuality, and suicide that parents and schools find too inappropriate and immoral for their children, leading The Giver to become number eleven on the American Library Association’s most challenged books of the 1990s (“Suicide Book Challenged in Schools”).
A lot of things in the world are considered inhumane. In the novel, there is a process known as “releasing.” It is not until later in the novel that Jonas watches a recorded tape of his father, a Nurturer, “releasing” the weaker of twin babies. Like other citizens, Jonas imagines “being released” as the pleasant notion of being transferred to ...
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...book is often dubbed immoral and inappropriate, it is meant to do nothing more than to show the world its own shame.
Works Cited
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Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print.
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“Suicide Book Challenged in Schools.” USA Today. 20 July 2001. Web. 4 April 2014.
In 1982 was when Banned Books Week was introduced to the world (ASJA, 1). “Banned Books Week is the national book community’s annual celebration of the freedom to read”. In the United States, the First Amendment protects American citizens from being denied the right to read any book they desire (Banned Books, 1). Banned Books Week is usually on, the last week of September (Cho,1). Banning a book is called when the content in the novel is not suitable for certain ages (American, 1). Books can be
Have you ever read a book and wondered “How is this book allowed in public libraries?” Most students do not pay attention to content; however, many parents disagree with the content their children are reading, whether the book is being taught in class or the child picked it up in the school library. Surprisingly, some school librarians and teachers disagree with certain books permitted in schools. The book Forever by Judy Blume is an example of a challenged and controversial book. Judy Blume is a children’s book author, which most people would not think that her books have been challenged.
Books that have shaped America are slowly starting to disappear. Many of the previous social norms have fallen out of fashion, and because of this reason numerous books are beginning to become banned. Blasphemy, racism, sex, and violence are all ethical reasons for books to be censored.
Baldassarro, R. W. "Banned Books Awareness: The Call of the Wild." Banned Books Awareness. Deep Forest Productions, 24 July 2011. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
Wall, James M. "An Ominous Threat to Books." Speak Out Against the New Right. Ed. Herbert F. Vetter. Boston: Beacon Press, 1982.
Foerstel, Herbert N. Banned in the U.S.A.: a Reference Guide to Book Censorship in Schools and Public Libraries. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994. Print.
... Controls Ideology." Libricide: The Regime-Sponsored Destruction of Books and Libraries in the Twentieth Century. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2003. 236-238. Rpt. in Book Banning. Ed. Ronnie D. Lankford. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. At Issue. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Books are being banned in our schools and libraries all over our country. The book I am doing this research paper on is The Giver; I have read The Giver several times and enjoyed the book each time. All though the book has been banned in Texas, Massachusetts, Washington and many more states, but Texas has completely tried to rid the book from the entire state. The book has been challenged for many accurate and some inaccurate reasons; three in which are violence, sexual content, and offensive language. I believe The Giver should be banned for certain age groups such as 5-12, but for the more aged and mature readers the book should not be banned.
Books are banned for many reasons but more times than not it is because of the sensitive information found within the novel that agitates the reader. As long as people have been able to develop their own opinions, others have sought to prevent them from sharing. At some point in time, every idea has ultimately become objectionable to someone. The most frequently challenged and most visible targets of such objection are the very books found in classrooms and public libraries. These controversial novels teach lessons that sometimes can be very sensitive to some but there is much more to challenged books than a controversial topic. What lies within these pages is a wealth of knowledge, such as new perspectives for readers, twisting plots, and expressions that are found nowhere else. For example, To Kill A Mockingbird, contains references to rape, racial content, and profanity that have caused many to challenge the novel in the first place. The book was banned from countless
McNamee, Gregory. "Absolutely True Tales Of Censorship." Kirkus Reviews 79.17 (2011): 1508. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Banned Books Week.” Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read American Library Association, 21st Sept. 2005. Web.02 March 2016
Why are books challenged and further on banned? To challenge a book is an attempt to remove the material from schools and/or libraries, and to ban a book is to successfully remove the material from these places. Books are usually challenged to protect children from the censors of these books. This book was banned for all the wrong reasons. This paper will focus on racism, sexism, homosexuality, and violence since these were reasons the book got banned which on the contrary should have given it much more motive to let high school students read and learn from it.
"Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009." American Library Association. American Library Association, n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2013. .
Every year in the United States we have books being banned and challenged by many people who do not like the contents of books. When researching for this argument essay I found an article written by Rebecca Hagelin. Rebecca Hagelin is the author of Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in a Culture That’s Gone Stark Raving Mad and the vice president of communications and marketing at the Heritage Foundation (Lankford).
This article emphasizes the point that censors go too far when they attempt to not only ban a book for their own children but want to remove it altogether from a school library, so that other students cannot read it.