To Ban or Not To Ban “His lips were gentle against mine, and I could tell his mind was elsewhere- trying to figure out what was on my mind. I decided he needed a hint. My hands were slightly shaky as I unlocked my arms from around his neck. My fingers slid down his neck to the collar of his shirt. The trembling didn’t help as I tried to hurry to-” sorry but the Rockingham County School Board has banned this book due to the mature themes and sexual content. This book isn’t the only one that’s being banned based on the contents it contains and it certainly won’t be the last. In an online article What People Object To When They Ban Books, written by Sarah Begley, “While violence and substance use both make the top 10, sexually explicit content draws far more criticism, ranking the No. 1 most cited reason for seeking to ban a book.” (Begley) Every book has a main point or …show more content…
In a TIMES magazine article Banned Books: A School Librarian’s Perspective, written by Sharon Coatney, a librarian, Coatney, talks about her past experience with censorship while she worked at a small rural high school. Coatney says that “censorship or banning isn’t a new concept for any library, all of which have certain policies that have to be adhered to while selecting books for their collection” (Coatney, 2000). During her time at the high school, she says that the school’s library was practically a metal box that was locked for security reasons. Part of Coatney’s job as a librarian required her to keep all viewpoints balanced and to know what to do when an individual parent requests that a book from their ‘library’ be banned. “The removal of books didn’t take place often, but when it did it was because the book didn’t meet the criteria of the library policies instituted by the administration” (Coatney, 2000). In the article, Coatney voices her regret that the students had little to no access to their books. Within