Book Bans: Who are They Truly Protecting
By Lily
Book banning is no new thing; in the United States of America, it first started in the 17th century, and they would burn the books – does this remind anyone of Fahrenheit 451 by George Orwell? While people in the United States are no longer burning books, they are still being banned, with a “nearly 200 percent surge during the 2023-2024 school year,” according to PEN America. We have to ask ourselves – are book bans really protecting children or just silencing important stories and viewpoints like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult? With this information and knowing some of the books that are currently being banned, I can confidently say that book bans are not protecting children and are silencing important stories and viewpoints.
As previously stated, there has been an enormous surge in book bans in schools since 2021. According to the American Library Association, “2,452 unique titles were targeted for censorship in 2024.” Nearly 16,000 book bans have happened in public schools since 2021. I believe this is due to numerous events of this decade such as the changing political climate, the Black Lives Matter movement, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the political and social divisions that seem larger than ever.
Books are supposed to be an escape from reality, and for children, books also influence how they see the world around them by sharing important stories. For example, I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins as a child, and it taught me how important rebellion can be, how to change something you don’t think is right and to keep fighting even when everything seems to be against you. Katniss Everdeen is a morally gray heroine who did whatever was necessary to protect her little sister and paid the consequences for her actions, but still came out on top and stronger than ever. She fought against numerous corrupt individuals and government systems. The Hunger Games is banned in numerous schools and libraries because of violence, anti-government themes, “anti-family” themes, and social commentary, among other reasons. Of course there is violence in the series, as kids have to murder each other to live. “Anti-family” themes – well the people who ban this book must value biological family over found family. Then you have the social commentary and anti-government themes… it has these and for good reason. The United States of America was built on social commentary and rebellion against the British monarchy, and people are banning this book for the same reasons. The series made my generation think about what is wrong with the current government and how we would like to change it, especially to prevent something even remotely close to the book from happening. Now The Hunger Games is not even the most challenged book out there, just one of the most popular.
The most banned book during the 2023-2024 school year in 98 school districts across the country was Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. Nineteen Minutes is about a school shooting at Sterling High in New Hampshire and explores the entire process and gives the event a different viewpoint than what we usually see. The events prior to the shooting, the shooting itself, and the aftermath of the shooting. A boy named Peter Houghton was bullied for years and he snapped one day and left ten dead and more wounded. Now, the book wasn’t banned because of the school shooting, but because according to Picoult, there is a “date rape scene” and it uses “anatomically correct words for the human body.” Jodi Picoult said this on her Instagram account, “In fact, hundreds of students have told me Nineteen Minutes stopped them from committing a school shooting or showed them they were not alone in feeling isolated, the book did not harm them. It gave them tools to deal with an increasingly divided and different world.”
This brings me to another point, most books are banned because of the content within the pages of the book. The most common reasons are racial issues, sexual content, violence, presence of witchcraft, religious affiliations, political bias, LGBTQ+ topics, and being simply age inappropriate. Now I think there is a simple solution to a complicated problem which is to protect children. Simply put age restrictions on the books like they do with movies and tv shows. If you have to be 18 or older to go to pornography websites, then the same should apply to books with explicit sexual content. For example, the A Court of Thorns and Roses series is banned in several school districts and the entirety of Utah because of explicit sexual content and its challenge to traditional societal norms. Now, I am only focusing on the explicit content. The young adults who are reading this in school libraries can still check it out at their public libraries or buy it from a book store, they just cannot read it from the school library and parents can be assured that their child isn’t learning anything bad or sexual.
I have another point in relation to the last paragraph, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is banned in several school districts because of its sexual content, profanity, exploration of women’s rights, exploration of extremism and its depiction of violence and negative portrayals of Christianity. However, it was adapted to a TV show in 2017 and ran until this year. Unless you put parental controls and put on the kids switch, which is only for kids 12 years old and younger, anyone can watch the show and it is very dark and does not protect children. So why is there all this outrage about the book being banned but the TV show is fine? What about the book and movie The Hate U Give? It is banned in various school districts but again anyone can watch the movie. Why are books so special?
Finally, I would like us to consider the thought process about all this protecting children. People are banning books to try to protect children, but really you are taking away various important stories and viewpoints they should learn. They should be able to read just about anything their parents approve of from the school and public library. If the parents have a problem with the book, don’t let them read it. Once they start school they need the critical thinking skills that come from reading. SevenSprings Education wrote an article called, Reading Widely to Develop Critical Thinking Skills. In this fantastic article, it outlines the various skills children learn from reading. The skills are as follows: Improved vocabulary and language skills, problem solving, imagination, growing your knowledge base and developing areas of interest.
Children also see what is being banned. The racial issues, witchcraft, talks about different religions or how people interpret their religion. They see what is being banned and start to wonder if they aren’t supposed to talk about those topics at all. What happens one day when a middle school girl wonders why she is starting to like other girls and she can’t find the information in the school library where she spends most of her time and can’t go to the public library? She’s going to start to wonder if she can ask her parents or even librarians about the topic. When children see that information is not there, then they are unsure if they should even ask or think about the topic, as if it is taboo. Banning books is not protecting children and is silencing important stories and viewpoints. I believe we should focus on real world problems that are true threats to children such as hate crimes, racism, school shootings, and more. We are telling children what they should and shouldn’t know and do and one day that will come back to bite us. They say that banning books is about protecting children, but who are they truly protecting? The parents from difficult questions, or the government for wanting to stay as it currently is and wanting to control the narrative, or nobody at all.
Works Cited
American Library Association. “Book Ban Data.” Www.ala.org, American Library Association, 20 Mar. 2024, www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data.
Trimel, Suzanne. “Nearly 200 Percent Surge in School Book Bans during 2023-2024 School Year – PEN America.” PEN America, 1 Nov. 2024, pen.org/press-release/nearly-200-percent-surge-in-school-book-bans-during-2023-2024-school-year/.
https://www.facebook.com/peoplemag. “Jodi Picoult Says “Books Are on the Ballot” after Her Book Nineteen Minutes’ Was the Most-Banned Book Last Year.” People.com, 2023, people.com/jodi-picoults-nineteen-minutes-was-the-most-banned-book-last-year-8736199.
Seven Springs Education. “Reading Widely to Develop Critical Thinking Skills | Seven-Springs.” Seven Springs Education, 5 Sept. 2022, www.seven-springs.co.uk/resource-hub/reading-widely-to-develop-critical-thinking-skills/.