As a way to express deep emotion or societal issues, literature has been a mark of intellectual genius since the writing of the “Epic of Gilgamesh” in 2100 BCE. Over the course of time, governments have restricted books as a way to control the information the public has access to or censor what can be read. This censorship has been most prominent under, but is not limited to, dictatorships.While some cases in the United States claim the necessity for keeping children away from inappropriate concepts, others argue that these books have educational value and are illustrative of different representations.
While these books are on the banned list in America, they can still be read and taught. The ultimate decision is left up to school districts and individual school boards. In most cases, districts have developed policies for managing book challenges and have the decision to remove, restrict, or keep the book. Bans can also be implemented in public libraries depending on individual libraries policies.
Recently, it has been most common among older generations and parents to see validity in banning books as a way to protect children from obscenity or anything that may be seen to corrupt their minds. However that being said, the line for what is or is not considered obscene has fluctuated throughout history. In the United States for instance, a surge of book bans have been issued beginning in 2021 due to increased political tensions. These restrictions have been focused on LGBTQ+ themes as seen in the banning of “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, a story revolving around growing up black and queer: this book has primarily been censored because of its LGBTQ+ content and explicit scenes.
Race has also been a major topic of discussion in book restrictions because of recent questions about the teaching of critical race theory. It is for this reason that the classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee has been banned. Its writings of racial slurs and mature themes have caused debates among parents on whether or not they want their children to be reading a novel with that kind of content. As a student, Glen Rock senior Belen Bullrich Alonso believes that reading these types of books provides learning opportunities for what has happened in the past and that restricting books would be erasing history. “To Kill a Mockingbird provides a lot of important life lessons for young children and to ban it because it had ‘inappropriate’ words is ignorant and cowardly,” Bullrich Alonso said.
Glen Rock English teacher Mrs. Jaretsky approaches teaching books like “To Kill a Mocking Bird” carefully, emphasizing the historical context and weight racial slurs and content hold. To her, it is imperative that the material covered in these books is understood in the broader perspective of time. Regarding “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Jaretsky takes time to acknowledge the dehumanizing past of racial slurs used by Harper Lee and its overall intent for the book’s message.
When it comes to the importance of teaching banned content, high school English teacher Ms. Hathaway claims that “restricting anyone’s access to, or at least inhibiting or making it harder for people to access these things, is just going to end up having an overall detrimental effect on our country’s ability to help foster empathy because that’s one of the things that teachers can’t teach.”
