In my opinion, censoring novels takes away from the explorative education that students should be receiving. For instance, The Color Purple, Huckleberry Finn, and To Kill A Mockingbird are all on the banned book list for their use of derogatory language regarding African-Americans. However, these novels provide insight as to how our country once acted and how we have grown since. Sure, there might be a handful of students who are not mature enough to meaningfully examine and understand books highlighting the once (and debatably still) prevalent racism in our country, but to ban those books indefinitely does a great injustice to those who suffered through tough times based on their skin color alone.
While derogatory words are not the only reason book are prohibited, most of the other reasons for injunction are quite trivial. Harry Potter is a commonly banned book in libraries due to the fact that it “promotes witchcraft.” I enjoy reading about Harry flying around on his broomstick just as much as the next person, but that does not mean we’re all going to hop on our handy Swiffers and jump off the nearest building to start our journey to Hogwarts.
According to the American Library Association (ALA), there have been 11,000 recorded cases of attempted book bans since 1990. To my knowledge, our school library has not attempted to ban or censor any books, thankfully. Each and every student’s education is suppressed when a book is banned at their school, and that is not right.