Banning Books Argumentative Essay

976 Words4 Pages

Growing up, reading had never been my favorite thing to do. I’d always try to persuade my parents not to read, and little me would rather do anything else in the world besides that. However, my parents never were heavily restricting on the books I read. This led me to read many of the books my parents had bought over the years on topics such as politics, business, science, etc. Now, I thank my parents for allowing me to read freely because now I know the perspective of many across the world and now am a less biased person.
The freedom to read is a fundamental right that is essential to a democratic society. Unfortunately, there has been a growing trend toward banning books in America. In addition, AP African American Studies course was disapproved …show more content…

This can make students very singular-minded and unaware of other perspectives. Personally, I wasn’t really familiar with the perspective of someone in gangs and how difficult it is for the next generation to break that cycle (THUG LIFE), which this book is all about. I gained valuable knowledge from reading that book, and I now am more aware of the generational wealth gap within the country and how wrong it was. In general, banning books has negative impacts on children because it puts limits on their intellectual freedom and diversity of thought, limiting critical thinking and narrowing their range of …show more content…

This is a clear violation of freedom of speech and expression, and it goes against the principles of democracy.
According to the Australian National University and the University of Nevada, “[their] researchers say that having more books growing up, even if you don’t read them, improves educational outcomes” (Dellatto 1). By banning more and more books within America, instead of protecting our youth, we’re in reality hurting them more as we're trying to disregard the perspective of many people.
What really upsets me is that many of the books being challenged within the state are about events that are important to the current status of our world, for example, the Holocaust. I do understand that some topics are a little tough on kids and parents/adults that challenge books on these topics think they’re doing a good thing for their community instead of bad. In my opinion, if a parent doesn’t want their child not reading a book on a specific topic/event, they should regulate that in their household, not a whole district. This in reality hurts the children within the district more than it’s protecting them as it’s limiting the ability of willing kids to read multiple perspectives, promoting the “single