There have been 129,864,880 books written since the invention of Gutenberg’s Printing Press in 1940. Around 2 million of those books were published in 2024 alone. However, not all of those books are becoming proper resources for students due to the American government doing something called “book banning”.
According to the Free Speech Center, book banning is a form of censorship that occurs when private individuals, government officials, or other organizations limit or remove books from libraries, schools, bookstores, or reading lists. This can be caused by many reasons such as violent themes, disrespect towards parents or families, having sexually explicit content, lack of literary merit, containing evil themes, or being unsuitable for a particular age group.
In America, book banning has been the biggest form of censorship since 1982, and this creates a real problem for the youth who are trying to read these books.
There have been 16,000 books banned from schools all around the United States, according to Penn America. That is 16,000 books most children will lose the chance to read, and 16,000 books that contain important literary themes are being wiped off the shelves. At Floyd Central High School, we have 189 books that are classified as resource books for students to use in class and out. All the books I just named are considered classics. All of them also teach important lessons about the world we live in today or the history of it, and students need to be able to read them.
Take Animal Farm for example. I read this book last year in eighth-grade English. It’s about a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer. They are hoping to create a space for animals to be free, happy, and equal. Ultimately, their rebellion is betrayed by one of their trusted leaders, and the farm ends up worse than before. This book represents the Russian Revolution of 1917 and how we need to avoid falling under a dictatorship and repeating history. Unfortunately, this book has been banned for being accused of being a part of communist propaganda, but it’s quite the opposite. Animal Farm helps to show what kind of a society we can become, whether it is a capitalist, socialist, fascist, or communist society. Children need to have access to this book to read about the past and how to avoid it in the future, considering they will be the ones in charge.
Another book that just recently got banned was The Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Atwood. It is about a futuristic world in which a patriarchal state known as The Republic of Gilead overthrows the United States government. They put a new law in place where handmaids are now forced to conceive babies for privileged couples. According to the First Amendment Museum, this book was banned for, “sexual content, offensive language, and being unsuited to the age group.”
If people think it is unsuitable for the age group, they can put restrictions on the book instead of banning it entirely. This book is a great representation of how much control our leaders have and how we need to understand equality better so that we don’t end up in a dystopian society.
Book banning may seem like a good idea on paper. People may say that that is how we are keeping kids from reading books that might not be appropriate for them. However, once we ban one book, how do we determine what is and is not appropriate? Whose job does that become? One person may take something as being inappropriate, while someone else might think everyone should read it. How can we tell if a book is inappropriate or just simply misunderstood? If we ban everything we find different, it will cause society’s thoughts and opinions to fuse together. We need diversity in books to keep us all unique.
Banned books are an important way to view history through the eyes of others. They can show the challenges society has faced, and the important ways we have overcome them, and these books can teach us things. It can create an opportunity to learn how to accept others, empathize with them, we can better learn how to be human, and to be different from those around us.
Books are a way for people throughout time to express themselves. When books become censored, it is like we are censoring history. Books are supposed to be a thing for all people to enjoy. Books are not just written for one person, they are written for all kinds of people. They can represent people who might not be in the media or on a big screen. We can not take that away so censorship needs to stop.