Banning Books: Right or Wrong?

By: Natalie White

An issue for years in the literacy world, the topic of banning books has quickly become a popular subject. Why ban a book that could make a difference in your child’s life? Isn’t that against the right to free speech, written by our forefathers in the first amendment of the constitution? I am against banned books 99.9, with the small .01 for them only being because some books need to be banned, such as the books that curse every other word and the pornographies.

I don’t believe that it’s right to ban a book from the hands of an innocent child, especially if it could make a difference in said child’s life. A book with a strong moral of love, friendship, and believing in you, while following the life of a child-turned-adult-before-eighteen-years-of-age should not be taken from the hands of the youth of today. Yes, I am indeed referring to the popular Harry Potter series and the issue at hand of Laura Mallory trying to ban it from Georgia schools. And even the book To Kill a Mockingbird, a masterpiece, but banned for its use of profane language in several schools across America and probably in other countries.

Yes, it’s okay to challenge a book and to keep it from your own children, but not if you haven’t even READ the book(s), simply because they’re “too long” or “too tedious” (Laura Mallory). Don’t just say, “Hey, I’ve HEARD these books deal with magic so it must to be Wicca (not to be taken as a put down to the Wicca faith)!” and immediately hate them. The Harry Potter books have a real moral to them, and often times you can see small references to things such as the Holocaust and discrimination according to lineage. The good witches and wizards look down upon this kind of behavior, whereas the bad see it to be okay and if you don’t believe this way, you’re basically the closest thing to troll dung as you can get.

So to answer the question asked in the very title of this story, banning books is wrong. These novels are beautifully written most times and deal directly with the issues of today. The morals in the epic Harry Potter series teach children that love can conquer so much and that friends can help you get through the darkest of times. The only thing keeping a child from reading them is their parents’ view on the (when you think about it) rather small role of witchcraft and wizardry in the books. Yes, they go to a magic school, yes they perform magic, yes some of the witches and wizards use their powers for their own evil doings, but is this book really all about Witchcraft? NO! The Harry Potter series follows the life of a young boy called Harry Potter who is forced to grow up before his time, simply because an evil wizard saw him to be a threat when he was only one year old. Harry Potter is not just a wizard. As said in the very first hour of the first movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, “I’m not a wizard. I’m just… Harry. Just Harry,” Harry Potter is just a boy with a dark and terrible past.

Are you there God? It’s me Margaret, is a book by Judy Blume and is listed as number sixty-two of the American Library Association’s list of 100 most frequently challenged books of 1990-2000. My mother gave this book to me for Christmas just before I turned thirteen-years-old, the same age Margaret was in the book. This story of going from tweeny to teen is challenged simply because it talks about a woman’s menstrual cycle and other things that teenaged-girls have to go through in real life. If that book is banned, not only will teenaged-girls have to go through this stage in their lives without any hope for a guide that may help them understand, but you would also technically have to ban discussion of such matters publicly, something that is prohibited and immoral in America according to the First Amendment.

Margaret grew up without a religion because her parents were of different religions and her parents chose to raise her that way. Margaret makes the decision to discover a religion, and that she needs to believe in something, and asks if God is there and listening. She experiments with Judaism, different forms of Christianity, and Catholicism until she finds one that she believes in. The book is also challenged because of that religious debate, another one of the things mentioned in the first amendment: freedom of religion.

Books that are banned or challenged in America because of religion and some speech go directly against the constitution. Books that are challenged when you haven’t even read them is something that should not be done. At least read the book first. Who knows? You may just change your mind about choosing to challenge it.