In our
ela class we have been discussing the topic of banned books. In our inquiry
groups we read the book “Cranked” by Ellen Hopkins. This book was on the banned
books list. Our group read this book to find out and see why people were to get
rid of this book in young adult’s libraries. This lead me to my thesis which
is, books containing mature and explicit content should not be banned from
young adult libraries because of the values it teaches the reader.
I completely
disagree with the banning of books because there are things in the books that
teach us valuable lessons which we could have not learned any other way. One example that proves this point is in the
article “The Banned Books We Have Loved”. In the article, it states the
valuable lessons that books have taught us. From “Go Ask Alice” we learned that
life can go off the rails all too quickly and that drugs should be considered
with caution. Another example of this is from the book “Bridge to Terabithia”
which taught us the importance of friendships and being open to others. We
learned that death can be a sudden and unexpected, and terribly tragic. Judy
Blume’s Blubber taught us very early the dangers of bullying, and to stand up
for ourselves. In the book that I was reading in my inquiry group there were
very clear themes that were too explicit content, there were themes such as
sex, drugs, and rape in my book that were really explicit. Some people say that
it is good to expose children to themes such as drugs and alcohol because it is
a good way to teach them about life. I totally agree with this because explicit
themes do teach us valuable lessons which can help us in everyday lives
Another reason that I disagree with the
banning of books is, the books that are aimed at children often deal with dark
themes. For example, In "Darkness Too Visible," is claimed that there
were a lot of violent themes in the book. In the article it stated that
"what goes on in children's head has to do with what he or she
reads." I completely disagree with this because I believe that it’s up to
the audience to do what they want to, I don’t think that a book will affect
their minds to do dark things.
