Are There Books That Should Be Banned From Your School Library?
Do you think there are books that you and your friends are not mature enough to read? Are there books that contain sexual or violent content, profanity, racial slurs, or religious or political messages that should not be available at your school? If so, how should that be decided? The last week of September is Banned Books Week, and we invite you to scan this list of Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books for 2000-2009 and think about the questions we pose here. Please post your responses below.
In our "10 Ways to Celebrate Banned Books Week," you can learn about why everything from classics like "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Huckleberry Finn" to current favorites like the "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" series have been banned by schools and districts. Here is what we write about a recent challenge:
This week, a university professor, Wesley Scroggins, attacked Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak" as "soft pornography" in The Springfield News-Leader of Missouri. Ms. Halse Anderson responded on her blog, as did the teacher and blogger Donalyn Miller on The Book Whisperer Blog. Read the blog posts and discuss both positions. What is "soft pornography"? Should teenagers, as novelist and Harvard student Isabel Kaplan argues in her Huffington Post post, read books with such content?
Students: Tell us what you think about this issue. Are there books that should be banned from your school library? If so, who should decide? How? Of the books on this banned books list, how many have you read? How did they affect you?
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