Banning Books Should Be Banned Essay

Hauna Schiestle

Mrs. L. Smith

College Prep English 12

15 February 2023 Banning Books Should be Banned

Currently, schools have been banning books left and right. When a book gets banned, the book is taken out of school libraries, and not read in school English classes. Just in 2020-2021 over 1,600 books were banned from schools. The disturbing part about these books is that they are classics, Charlotte's Web, To kill a Mockingbird, and The Great Gatsby are some examples. When they ban books from school we are erasing history, and we aren't giving students an experience of all societies. Schools should include all genres of literature, books based in all societies, and with controversial topics. One big problem that most people don't

Another reason schools should let kids read books about hard topics and new societies is that they can learn to develop new emotions for those places. For example, the book, Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, is a book about a family situation where there is a circle of shootings. The book is about an African American family in a poor community. If a student has never been to the hood, never seen a fight, or a drug dealer on the corner of the street, how are they supposed to know what it's like? How are they supposed to connect to those people or be nice to them? By reading this book you can know what it's like to feel the pressure to feel obligated to kill someone. Students are able to see what life is like in poorer communities and what black life is like. When they read books about these things they can relate to them in a way that watching the news can't. Therefore they can feel for those people just a little bit better. The New York Public library wrote an article about the importance of banned books and said, “Once you have read a book by someone from a walk of life other than your own and practiced the art of empathy, you can never hate them—at least not if you're intellectually honest. It's this empathy muscle that gets us out of the morass of false categories, nuance-crushing stereotypes, and black-and-white thinking.” Reading books about hard

Groups should not be allowed to ban books from schools. If a teacher chooses not to read a book then that is their choice but the options should not be limited to a certain list of books. Books with controversial topics help students in the long run by giving them a chance to create new political views, experience all societies, and learn new things in a relatable setting.

Jason Reynolds, Long Way Down. 2017

Marx, Tony. “The Importance of Reading Banned Books.” The New York Public Library, 6 June 2022, https://www.nypl.org/blog/2022/06/06/importance-reading-banned-books. Accessed 6 February 2023.

McMahon, Regan. “Why your kid should read banned books.” The Washington Post, 27 September 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/09/27/why-your-kid-should-read-banned-books/. Accessed 15 February 2023.

Rodriguez, Jodie. “Why It's Important for Kids to See Themselves in Books.” Scholastic, 1 March 2018, https://www.scholastic.com/parents/books-and-reading/raise-a-reader-blog/why-its-important-kids-to-see-themselves-books.html. Accessed 15 February