Why Books Should Not Be Banned: Any Opinion Matters

For silent reading day, Daniel brought a picture book, And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, and pretty bookmark his mother gave him. He started to read when all the sudden his teacher snatched it away saying that it was banned in the school and told him that he needed to choose another one. He asked why and the teacher replied that it was not allowed in the school because it goes against their catholic faith. This reason is one of many reasons why people ban books through out the world. They execute this mostly to protect the younger generation from inappropriate language to violence. Although good reasons for banning books exist, but the benefits of reading a banned book exceeds the benefits of not reading them because of the insight and help the books give for young kids and young adults. This is one of the reasons why books should not be banned.

When it comes to who are the people trying to ban books, the most frequent people to cause this are parents. It comes to no surprise that the reason parents try to ban books are for their children because it goes against the parent’s morals, it contains sexual themes or scenes, it has cussing, or violence. These reasons stem from the fear that the relationship between reading content such as these could cause some kind of harm on a child’s mental health or their behavior. But this isn’t the case. Dr. Chris Ferguson, part of the psychology department at the Stetson University, accomplished a study to find out if banned book indeed have a negative effect on students. Ferguson found that children that “reading banned books not predict non-violent or violent crime” . He finds in conclusion that “reading banned books does not seem to be harmful and may even contribute to emotional and moral growth”. This is a great discovery. It demonstrates that there isn’t anything bad that will happen when a young adult reads a banned novel. One the other hand, these books can influence these young children for the better or for the worse as this study that Ferguson was just the beginning and more studies should be done. Then those concerned parents can censor those books for only their children. The parents shouldn’t ban that certain book from everyone just because of the parent’s personal believes. Children will grow and have to deal with it one day. Parents can’t forever shield their child, but they can teach them to understand these issues. Perhaps then, parents can see the negative effects of banning the books

Banning books negativity affects young adult’s mind and moral development. Banning a book can be hurtful to young adults and children. It can make them feel less social. For example, “eleven percent of our population is LGBTQ” and they rarely show up in literature. In fact, they just started to show up. Professor James Blasingame says, “as far as they can tell, they don’t exist because they don’t see themselves in any of the books they read. They’re being told that their existence doesn’t count.” Just by deleting the LGBTQ community from our literature discourages them from discussing it and talking to a teacher or an adult they trust. This can cause fear and worry that shouldn’t be there. This may lead to serious problems for instance anxiety. LGBTQ kids are taught through the books that “talking about these issues is somehow shameful”. These youths are denied the lens that enables them to look at the people around the and realize. Hey that person is similar to me. I am not alone. I have someone to lean one. By delving into these banned books and exploring the many different complex topics by reading these books helps “build empathy for people unlike themselves and possibly discover a mirror of their own experience.” Not reading these thought-provoking books “limits their empathy and socioemotional developments.”Neil Gaiman-an author of a frequently challenged book “Neverwhere”-said, “Fiction build[s] empathy…you learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well…Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.” All this wonderful information that young adults learn from reading these banned books help get young adults ready for the world and the situations they might face later in the future. These banned books also show a verity of perspectives rather then one perspective if they didn’t read the banned books.

Banning books cause the control of thought and oppress people. Chelsea Condren wrote in her article, “Banning books is about individuals who believe they have the right to decide how we think what we see and especially about individuals who believe they are protecting their children by attempting to bar them from reading certain books.” By seeing certain ideas and unable to see others our perspective narrows and our thoughts become different. It prevents us from going to our true potential as students and citizens. The danger in bans is terrifying as someone thinks their opinion is the only one that matters. They start to think that everything else is wrong. We don’t have contrast and thus we can’t grow together. We need these books to be able to form skills that allow us to think critically and be able to form our own opinions and stop telling people what they can’t and can read.

Reading banned books has more gain then not reading the banned books. The studies show that reading does more good then harm. In fact, we aren’t even sure if it does harm to kids. Even if they were shielded as a child, they have to learn their parents tried to hide therefore it’s better if they learn to understand the issues they see in this imperfect world. The act of banning books isn’t all that great. It causes some items to be unable to fully develop, for example, empathy. It can discourage people and hurt their inner self. As the world processes and new books comes out, we must discuss ways to stop banning on books and remember what we engaged in and why we must stop for our future generations.