Book Banning And

Me

When I was in the fifth grade, my school shut down its only library. My elementary school in Brooklyn had been one of the many public schools affected by budget cuts sanctioned by the acting mayor at the time, Bill de Blasio. Upon learning of its closure, I became extremely excited. Why you might ask? The school had no choice but to give away all of their books. And it wasn’t like I didn’t have books at home. My parents constantly took my five siblings and I to the library to borrow books. What I really cared about was the types of books I could get: for as long as I could remember, my parents had banned me from reading and bringing certain books into our house. Having grown up in the church, my parents had raised their children as religious, a fact that immensely influenced what I could read. Off-limits books included those portraying magic, which my dad constantly referred to as “witchcraft," cursing, and, of course, books with suggestive themes. 

In recent years, book banning has become a staple in highly conservative states. Like my parents, people in these states fear that their children are being purposefully exposed to ideals that go against “traditional” values, perhaps as part of some grander “liberal agenda.” In the 2023-2024 school year, over 10,000 books were either challenged or banned completely in public libraries, for exploring topics such as LQBTQ+, sexuality, mental illness, genocide, and critical race theory (“Censorship by the Numbers”). In September 2023, a Texan school fired a teacher after she assigned her class a graphic novel adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank. Parents called for the removal of this teacher due to passages where the young Anne explores her sexuality in isolation (Sheeley). No less than a few months before this incident, the conservative group Moms For Liberty also banned Diary of Anne Frank from a Florida high school, on the grounds that it not only contained “pornography,” but also didn’t portray the Holocaust accurately (Oladipo). The book in question, of course, is more famous for exploring the life of a young Jewish girl, from before the Nazi occupation of Germany until the horror we know as the Holocaust.

Censorship like this has a very long and dark history, often wielded by powerful figures to maintain control over various minorities. When conservative groups censor young people from any book they deem “dangerous,” they prompt kids to seek information from other sources, which might not be completely reliable. In my case, when faced with my parent's restrictions, I simply found other means of reading behind my parents’ back. Sites like Libby, Wattpad and AO3, online libraries of free downloadable books, fueled my hunger for reading. Unfortunately, many of these platforms also expose children to inappropriate content that no young person should encounter. Without proper education on sensitive topics—such as sex —children are likely to search for information on their own, especially if their peers are discussing these subjects at school. In such cases, restricting access to books in schools and libraries that provide crucial, age-appropriate education on these topics only undermines the goal of  'protecting' young minds. Instead of shielding them from important knowledge, we should be encouraging open conversations in public spaces that allow children to gain a deeper understanding of the more complicated facets of life. 

Censorship like this has a very long and dark history, often wielded by powerful figures to maintain control over various minorities. 

In robbing children of the diverse perspectives represented in our society, book bans effectively force them to see the world through a very narrow lens. Take, for example, another book that has been repeatedly removed from schools: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This novel conveys pivotal messages about police brutality, racism, and the trials that Black people face in America. In 2017, school officials in Katy, Texas pulled it from shelves based on its, “pervasive vulgarity and racially-insensitive language…not its substantive content or the viewpoint expressed” (Gomez). This reasoning, however, betrays why the author wrote this book to begin with. The racially insensitive language and vulgarity with which Angie Thomas reflects exactly the Black experience in America. This reality, though blunt, is one children need to become aware of. Early exposure to such topics helps young people develop empathy and understanding, giving them something to relate to if they ever encounter situations similar to these so-called 'dangerous' subjects.

While my parents went a bit overkill when it concerned their book bans, I do appreciate the limits to their approach. They did not storm my school building, demanding that my teacher change their entire curriculum simply because a certain passage was “inappropriate.” They did not try to push their conservative values down the throats of innocent children just because I was numbered among them. They politely took my teachers aside and explained that while they knew the school required me to read certain books, perhaps I might be exempted from this policy, instead reading and responding to an alternative book. And guess what? This tactic worked. My teachers happily provided new reading material for me and made sure that I didn’t feel left out in class discussions. They understood what groups like Moms for Liberty don’t: Traditional morals can not be imposed on children in the name of protecting them from “liberal brainwashing.” While every guardian may have the right to decide what their kids have access to, that doesn’t give them the right to decide what other children get to read as well. 

I truly believe that those advocating book banning care less about protecting children and more about their power to suppress information. If they’re able to censor information for children underneath the watchful gazes of parents and teachers, what else might they be capable of achieving? As the Moms for Liberty pledge says, they want nothing less than “securing parental rights at all levels of government.” To satisfy this need for control, they don’t care that they are stealing—yes, I said stealing— essential knowledge from the next generation. Censorship is not a parental right, and our local and state governments should be doing more to combat it.