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10/4/12

Banned Book Week

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
 Ray Bradbury

I've been learning a lot about banned books this week, and found a number of reasons why books are banned. In my opinion, the reason why most books banned is because of vulgar language. It doesn't matter if the books are really amazing that it deserves the highest medal award. If there are a ton of swear words than certain people freak out and demand it to be banned. Another reason, I found why books are banned is because of the topic it talks about, such as homosexuality, magic, racism, kids killing kids, teen pregnancy, kids trying to learn how to be accepted but doesn't attend school that much, etc. 

And it makes me angry that all of these books are banned. No, homosexuality isn't a disease and people won't become gay if they read Heather Has Two Mommies or any other book that talk about homosexuality. Kids won't have low morals if they read The Catcher in the Rye, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or anything else. And no kids won't become violent if they read The Hunger Games trilogy.

It also makes me angry when some people ban books even though they haven’t read it at all. What’s the point of banning something if you don’t even know what the book is really about? Have they even tried to find what the theme (moral lesson) of the book really is? Have they thought really hard what it meant to other people or did they just ask themselves, this sucks because it has                      etc, let’ s not read it anymore and let’s have other people not read it or else they’re not a good person or whatever.

That is by law, a violation of free speech. If something is banned at the library, than that’s taking one less idea that is replaced by yay we banned this book now let’s burn them or something like that. That’s one less story for a person to get into, to escape his/her own life at the moment. It’s one less dream, one more sadness for the author, but it’s a lot more anger for the people who enjoyed that story.

We have the right to read whatever we want, and it’s our choice to endure the consequences that come out of it. If someone doesn’t like it than that’s fine, but it’s stupid of him/her to take that book away from a reader that enjoyed that book, or a reader that wants to read that book.

It’s like a person who hates the stars and tells the other people to not go to the stars, if that makes sense.

So I dare you this week and any other week to read a banned book. Whether it’s a book that has been banned from this year or any other year, read it. And if you don’t like it then that is fine, but don’t let it get taken away from the library because that is one less great literature out of the world. A work of literature that can possibly help us in the future if things go wrong. Literature that can make people small with one small character, a funny sentence/paragraph, or something else. Literature that can inspire.

Lists:
Books banned by government (includes governments outside of the United States)
And more if you google: banned books list, or something of that sort. 

Now a video from authors who stand for free speech. 






4 comments:

  1. Yes, random person here. I agree with you- books shouldn't be banned due to the content. A morally loose book most likely won't make someone lascvicious. I think I spelled that wrong, but oh well. I've read a banned book before, but I forgot what it was... I really liked it though- more in depth than a lot of things I read. ^_^

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  2. Honestly, if you've read Harry Potter, you've read a banned book. I've read a ton of banned books - and didn't even know it until banned book week when I went to the library and they had a display of a bunch of banned books where I was like...hey, I read that..and that...and that one too.

    But yeah, I don't agree with banned books. Any limitation on what you can read is bad, regardless of the reason. Like when I was in kindergarten (and this isn't specifically banned books) we were only allowed to pick books from the school library off one shelf, which had only really basic reading books. I was already a good reader, wanted to check out a chapter book, and found the basic books so boring. Restricting what a person can read is wrong.

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  3. @ Alice.
    I believe that a lot of people read a banned book without knowing that it is banned. And they turned out fine, unlike what some people say.
    And can you try to describe the book that you've mentioned about? I'm looking for some more books that can make me think and isn't assigned to me from my teachers or my older sister.

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  4. I read John Green's "Looking for Alaska" and as far as I can tell, it's been banned simply because of a bit of pot and a smidgen of nudity. Any high school student hears about these things from their peers, and I figure it's better to read about them from an intelligent author's perspective than have those subjects just passed down from grade to grade with no real knowledge.
    *Sigh.*

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