Banning Books

“Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance”. – Laurie Henderson. By banning books, it can deprive children the information or the mental nourishment they will need for life. Personally, it’s not the best objective for children to be brought up and not know the capabilities of the real world. Due to that, when a child grows up and goes out into the world they wouldn’t be as efficient on how to handle themselves on their own, due to the “protected state of mind” that they were taught. Many parents believe that by censoring and or banning books could prevent children from being too exposed to inappropriate content. Although, that might seem like the best choice for the child it could do more harm than good. Even though,

According, to People for the American way foundation, “Our basic right — the freedom to express ourselves as we see fit — is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States’ Constitution, ensuring the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unpopular or unorthodox.” People believe that children wouldn’t read books that have profanity, sexualities…etc. Even though many have become apprehensive of these books, most of the books have been proven more than once that censorship is still very much active today. Ranging from books such as: “Bridge to Terabithia” for its use of profanity, and some books about religion such as Christmas or other Christian holidays, according to http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/ A librarian spoke on the issues of the use of censoring books saying “banning or censoring books is certainly not a new concept in any kind of library. All libraries have specific policies that are followed in selecting books for inclusion in the

The banning of books, could potentially cause people especially younger readers to form the lack of creativity due to the protected state of mind that they were taught. According, to a librarian “It's more important for us to think about how we should be educating our students to make good choices, to know what is worthwhile and to be able to think logically and weigh all ideas in order to choose wisely.”

Personally, I believe that people should be able to read whatever they please, but I do believe that you shouldn’t let a 6-year-old read “The Color Purple”, but when they get mature enough for the real-world topics, parents should expose their kids to these books, so that when the child goes out into the world they can be more aware of what to look out