On Banning Books

For decades it has been a common practice to ban books not only in schools and churches but also in counties, states, and sometimes even across the United States as a whole. It has been many years since a book was banned by the federal government but every week books are continually banned by local institutions and various coalitions of people all throughout the country. Sometimes these bannings are done by churches or schools and other times they are done by entire counties or states. Fortunately many of them hold little weight and apply only to the institutions that have challenged the book in the first place - such as churches or certain private schools but larger bannings enacted by counties and states can make it much more difficult for those wishing to have access to a certain book. The most common bannings are done by schools looking to protect children from what they believe are “difficult” or “dangerous” ideas or material. This often results in the banning of books because of their themes, language, sexual nature, or other so-called “explicit” material. Sometimes the bans of these books are overturned - other times it is simply request that the material be reserved for older students or that parents must agree to the student reading the book prior to it’s use in a classroom. Sometimes however, these protests against books can lead to their removal from libraries and even booksellers which many believe is a violation of our First Amendment rights to free speech and expression.

The reasons for banning books vary but more often then not there are three that crop up again and again. According to the ALA (American Library Association) the three most common reasons are that the material in a book is considered firstly, to be sexually explicit, secondly, to contain offensive language, and thirdly, to be unsuited to any age group. Although many agree that it is commendable to want to protect the youth from obscene material the matter of determining what is obscene, and therefore deserving of restriction, should remain up to parents, and only parents - as cited by an interpretation of the Library Bill Of Rights. It’s also been stated by various supreme court justices that the government cannot prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds that idea offensive or disagreeable and reminds the general public that this is a foundational principle of our constitution. Nevertheless, books are challenged every year (many of them repeatedly) and it’s become obvious that throughout history, while many people seek to oppress and suppress various ideas and texts, the foremost contributors are those who believe that they have something to protect - most commonly parents. There are other groups and organizations that persist in banning books and many of them are religious in nature or by affiliation. It’s very common for churches to seek banning of books, especially those that directly attack their religion, either unconsciously or by design. A fair example is Not Without My Daughter, by Betty Mahmoody which characterizes the real life story of a woman escaping from her husband, along with her daughter, from Iran. The Iranian government quickly banned it for the harsh light in which it displayed not only Iran but Iranian Islamic Customs, but not before it caused quite an uproar for its display of general conditions there. Another is the ever popular Dan Brown novel The Da Vinci Code which was banned in Lebanon after Catholic leaders there deemed it offensive to Christianity, citing what were perceived as inaccuracies in the book. While these bannings often hold no legal weight (such as the Roman Catholic Church’s Index - Liborum Prohibitorum) they do maintain a considerable influence over the believers of such faiths.

Fortunately there are enough people, namely scholars, librarians, and literary advocates, who fight back when books are challenged against those attempting to have them banned. For the most part this is very effective as a book hasn’t been banned by the federal government since 1963 and there is a fair amount done to prevent bannings by smaller groups such as schools and churches as well. Every year the ALA hosts a national Banned Books week during the final week of september that encourages people to stand up against banning and to exercise their right to read whatever they choose without censor or restraint. Efforts such as these ensure that banned books are kept to a minimum but every week there are still attempts made to censor books from the general public.

Some books are challenged time and again and many of them are classics or widely popular books such as the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, and man of the Dan Brown novels as well as others like Candide, The Giver, Annie On My Mind, Bridge To Terabithia, and so forth. Classics are often challenges especially ones that are considered to be too graphic or offensive for young adults like Lord Of The Flies, Of Mice And Men, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Color Purple, 1984, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and quite a few more. Even children's books are the subject of banning such as And Tango Makes three, the story of a homosexual penguin couple that are helped by a zookeeper who gives them an egg to nurture and raise, as well as Sylvester and the Magic Pebble which depicts a donkey who finds a magic pebble that grants wishes - it was banned simply because it’s illustration shows the police in the book as pigs.

Whatever the reason, banning books is never a good thing and always leads to the suppression of other opinions and ideas throughout society. Book banning is notorious for being used in extreme forms of government as a means of oppressing the people and was particularly favored by the Nazis as a way of controlling the country and ensuring that nothing “anti-german” was allowed. These methods only lead to further censorship and are protested by many citizens today as being un-constitutional. Overall, banning books does no good and can actually bring a great deal of harm to our society - it’s far better to simply encourage parents to place their own restrictions on their children if they feel they must and allow others to do the same.