Which books were banned or challenged by parents in your school and why? Do you agree with banning them?

I recently learned about books frequently banned or challenged in American school districts. While I agree that certain books should have an age restriction (for example American Psycho for being very graphic) or should have disclaimers that the views expressed are not based on facts (like Mein Kampf) and therefore should not be accessible FREELY in school libraries for YOUNG students, I think that some of those books are banned or challenged for ridiculous reasons.

Brave New World by Huxley is a good example. The main reasons for removing it from school libraries are drug use, anti-family or anti-religious view points. It does include those topics, but it's a dystopian novel. The point of dystopian novels is to portray a terrible future scenario.

And Tango Makes Three, the children's book about the homosexual penguins from the zoo in NY, was banned in an area in Utah, because it portrays a non traditional family and promotes homosexuality. It's important that children view different sexualities as normal and also it's based on a true story. It's about penguins and doesn't contain any graphic scenes.

The Hunger Games for anti-religious and anti-family reason is one I really don't understand. Not wanting young children to read a book in which kids are killing other kids, okay, I can see that. But why anti-religion? Religion is not mentioned once in the entire series. And anti-family? Because the protagonists don't have a living father figure or what should be the reason for this one?

The most ridiculous one has to be Fahrenheit 451. As far as I know it isn't banned anywhere anymore, but it used to be and some parents are still demanding it to be banned from reading lists. I think it's really ironic to ban a book that criticizes censorship.

Everything regarding sex ed is also questionable. Information about contraception, stds and sexual hygiene should be available. Seriously 14 year olds not knowing you can get pregnant from unprotected sex is an issue. If you want to teach your child abstinence then do so. But don't believe at any time that they will not have sex before you consider it okay. Make sure they know how to protect themselves from stds and unwanted pregnancies if they decide to disobey you on this one, which they most likely will.

Submitted November 08, 2020 at 07:28AM by redwineandpizza https://ift.tt/3kcqKdL