Many high school students will probably remember having or hearing about a school project revolving around banned books. Students would choose a book that has been challenged for any number of reasons, read it, and create a project or presentation about why it got removed from bookshelves and whether or not the reason had merit.
Books like Brave New World, The Catcher in the Rye, and even Harry Potter in some schools have been banished from school libraries or called out for having controversial content, but sometimes the controversy makes the book worth reading. Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge continues to be a strength. Being armed with information can prove to be the most useful tool of all, more powerful than prejudice or stereotypes because of its ability to dispel them. When fighting against a fire, the most effective way to stop it would be to put it out. The same concept applies when it comes to anger revolving around preconceived notions, snap judgments, and lack of understanding about numerous concepts prevalent in all kinds of literature. “Books are essentially a gateway to another world through written word. Some books challenge the perception of everything while others can inspire a whole generation. Without books, much of today’s entertainment would not be the same. Unlike Film or TV, a book is only limited by an author’s abilities as a writer” according to theartiface.com. Limiting what someone can and cannot learn about prevents the opportunity to fully form a perspective or opinion in general. For a country that prides itself on freedom of speech, that certainly seems like a contradiction.
Take Fahrenheit 451 as an example of the future that censorship can lead to; a future where opposing viewpoints don’t exist because no one knows how to form a point of view. Limiting knowledge and understanding due to potentially controversial content based on current societal standards, which will end up shifting in the next few years anyway, creates an atmosphere of ignorance about the parts of life that may in fact be controversial. The only way to dispel stereotyping would be to first acknowledge its existence and then to learn why it shouldn’t exist. According to The Washington Post, “Banned books often deal with subjects that are realistic, timely and topical. Young people may find a character going through exactly what they are, which makes it a powerful reading experience and helps the reader sort out thorny issues such as grief, divorce, sexual assault, bullying, prejudice and sexual identity. The compelling teen rebels story The Outsiders has been banned, yet many middle-schoolers cite it as the book that turned them into readers.” By eliminating every novel that contains information that today’s world deems unacceptable, how will anyone be able to learn from it?
Books can be banned for any number of reasons; the majority of which include strong language, explicit scenes, and even LGBTQ+ references. In fact, out of the top 10 most challenged books, eight of them have been challenged due to LGBTQ+ content. What concerns many parents and adults would be that the teenagers and young adults reading novels with highly questionable or provocative themes will see them as good or positive. However, in the end, the author just tells a story, and even if some parts end up being glorified, that doesn’t mean that teens will automatically consider this fictional story to be the standard to set for themselves. Instead, it remains important to learn from these stories and not change or banish them because of some impure content. This especially holds true with books that had been written decades ago before today’s societal standards had been set. Instead of placing changeable restrictions and limitations on the kind of knowledge that teens can possess, perhaps it would be more beneficial to instead allow them to learn about the controversy so that they can formulate their own developed opinions with wisdom on their side.
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