Jason Lei 10/7/13
813 ELA
Dear Ms.Berner,
Imagine a world without books because freethought was illegal. Imagine that books k and in that world are being taken away and burned. This is what happens in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, one of the most challenged books in our country. This is how I feel when books are being banned because these books are being taking away from our reach. Books all around us are being banned for ignorant attributes like offensive language and drug abuse. I believe that books should not be taken from our libraries because books help us cope with our feelings and they help us run away from our scary worlds to a one that makes us feel important.
Many authors like Sherman Alexie, author of “ The Absolute Diary of a Part-Time Indian” concur with my claim. In the article “Why the Best Kids are Written in Blood” by Sherman Alexie, he talks about how teens from different schools survived many hardships, like poverty and gang warfare in order to graduate. In the article he also writes about why he contradicts to Megan Cox Gurdon’s article, “Darkness Too Visible”, on banned books and how young adults books are dark and horrendous. “ And there are millions of teens who read because they are sad and lonely and enraged. They read because they live in often-terrible world. They read because they believe, despite the callow protestation of certain adults, that books-especially the dark dangerous ones-will save them.” Alexie discusses that we read these “Gruesome” books because they help us learn to deal with what is going on in our lives and how to help ourselves get back on our feet. “ I write to give them weapons -in a form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters” Alexie adds. All in all Sherman Alexie talks about how we can no longer be protected and teens need books to help them run away from their scary lives and if they were not able to run away because books like “The Absolute Diary of a Part-Time Indian” are being taken of the shelves in our libraries then teens won’t learn how to cope and solve their problems.
Books all over the world are being banned from schools like Fahrenheit 451, Harry Potter, Where’s Waldo, and Crank. One of the schools is Conroe High School in Montgomery, Texas. Diana Verm, a student in Conroe High School was offended by the book “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury. She said that after reading the first few pages she immediately closed the book because in the book they burned the Bible, but Diana didn’t understand the concept of the book. The purpose of the book was to allow free thought and say that books are good not evil. The book disagrees with burning the Bible because the Bible is a book. I believe that if Diana read the book a more indepth instead of skimming through the pages for little details that support her claim that the book does truly disagree with burning the Bible and other books.
Harry Potter is another issue in our libraries. Catholic schools are taking down the book out because of witchcraft and sorcery. Many other schools believe that the book is inappropriate and have taken the book out of libraries because of disrespect to adults. Another issue in our library is the book “Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky. Glen Ellyn School in District 41 is taking the book away from the school library because of sexual content and inappropriate language. In the article “ Glen Ellyn D41 Removes Perks of Being a Wallflower From School Shelves” by Quan Truong the school had a debate on removing the book from the libraries. Anne Blyth, a parent of a student in the schools says “They’re young adults and we can’t keep them in a bubble. If they want to keep their kids in a bubble, that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be telling me what to do.” Many other parent and teachers also agree with Blyth but as a result the school board voted in favor to remove the book from school libraries.
Writer of “Darkness too Visible” Megan Cox Gurdon disagrees with not banning books. In her article she talks about how young adult books these days are dark and filled with profanity. She talks about how young adult books started to get gruesome and how books back then were also written in blood .But, what she doesn’t understand is that these books are meant to be dark so we can relate to them and if we can relate to them we can learn hot to help ourselves in these times of trouble. Taking away these books is like taking away our freedom because we need these books to understand the way of life.
In conclusion, we shouldn’t be banning books because we need learn how to help ourselves and if books are being taken away from us then we won’t be able to learn. People who disagree like, Megan Cox Gurdon don’t fully understand why these books are important to us and need to stop trying to protect us from the world because they don’t think we can handle the it.
