The Book-Banners: Adventure In Censorship Is Stranger Than Fiction

Ethan McBride Mrs. Schumacher.

Honors English 10 period 1

16 June 2024

Final exam research essay

“We've been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn’t approve of them.” This quote comes from a 1992 article called “the book-banners: Adventure in Censorship is Stranger Than Fiction” on the bangor daily news written by renowned author Stephen King. For decades there has been a struggle between writers and libraries who want to push messages which some may seem explicit against parents who are concerned that children are being taught inappropriate or mature topics in the books made available in libraries. At the end of the day, public libraries should not

Many make good points that the banning of books can be interpreted as un-nuanced censorship, this can be observed when realizing that most of the books being banned are about LGBTQ or racial issues. As stated in the 2021 article “We’re Preparing For a Long Battle. Librarians grapple with conservatives' latest efforts to ban books.” by Olivia B. Waxman. On time, “thanks to the First Amendment, the US has been remarkably, if not entirely, free of such official monitoring,” the magazine wrote. “Still, the nation has always had more than it needs of voluntary censors, vigilantes eager to protect everybody from hazards like ugly words, sedition, blasphemy, unwelcome ideas and, perhaps worst of all, reality.” This quote is trying to convey the idea that the banning of books has an ulterior, political motive to hide the truth from our youth. To sum up the argument being made,

These people believe that once we start taking books off shelves, this will lead to the spread of misinformation. Olivia B. Waxman said this on “We’re Preparing For a Long Battle. Librarians grapple with conservative efforts to ban books.” With time in 2021 “Kobabe, who is nonbian, told the Texas Tribune that Gender Queer aims to provide “good, accurate and safe information” for queer high school students at a time where theres a lot of misinformation about gender identity exploration online.” about a book under fire known as Gender Queer. Stephen King said this on “the book-banners: Adventure in Censorship is Stranger Than Fiction” with the Bangor Daily News in 1992, “don't waste your time or your energy. Instead, hustle down to your public library where these frightened people’s reach must fall short in democracy, or to your local book store and get a copy of what has been banned. Read it carefully and discover what it is your elders don’t want you to know.” This quote from an article titled “the book-banners: Adventure in Censorship is Stranger Than Fiction” shows that both writers believe that banned books are taking away from the public knowledge of our youth and that learning, no matter what it is, should be encouraged. Overall, this means that banning books may result in our youth being undereducated and that they deserve to know what truth is being hidden from them. Lastly,