Censorship of Books
...not take the book off the curriculum, they would not vote for the levy to build a new middle and elementary school in November. This was what we call bribery and we as students were not happy about it. It was wrong of the parents to act that way. They did not even have a good dispute against the book or any information on the book, all they did was threaten and bribe the school board. The students had very good speeches and actually discussed the book and what the problem was. Yes, the book has graphic content and maybe it was a college level book, but the class was a college level class. The class was Advanced Placement English and we were reading college level material and discussing topics that applied to what college students were studying. If our teacher did not think we could handle reading the book then why would she have put it on the schedule to read? Mrs. Gabbert knew the students in the class and knew we could handle the book and understand it the way we were suppose to. "I wrote 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huck Finn' for adults exclusively, and it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean."-Mark Twain The book was chosen to give us as students a different view of the world and what may have happened or might happen to our world in the future. It was chosen to teach us something and to make us think and in the end we did think and we did learn. We learned that adults do not in fact understand everything and when they say they are looking out for our well-being they may be trying to hard. Books are a learning tool and this book taught me that censorship is the assassination of all ideas. Censorship is a way for people to block out things they do not want to deal with and/or hear about. Censorship is a way of limiting freedom of speech in America one book at a time. Americans are driven to want what they can not have and censoring books makes individuals want to read it more. People who hear that a book was censored feel the need to find out why and in tune they read the book anyways. "Did you ever hear anyone say, 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me'?" -Joseph Henry Jackson. Mr. Jacksons’ quote gives proof that if people do not want to read a book because it may be damaging to what they think, then there is a good chance they will not read it. I hope people realize that banning the truth, as well as fiction, is proof that ignorance is dangerous to our freedom. Banning books is wrong plain and simple and people that think otherwise are not as educated as they think they are and have an active ignorance that is rather frightening. "One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present."-Golda Meir. This ignorance is due to not understanding our present lives, most of these books were written a long time ago and are seen as a nuisance t...