There are a gazillion books in this world. Those who CHOOSE the books that are on the shelves are more powerful than hose who REMOVE the books from the shelves.
Banning books is like instituting the Fairness Doctrine. I’d rather raise my own kids than have the government tell me what they should and shouldn’t read.
Where do we draw the line on banning books?
At zero.
What about Dean Koontz?
The problem comes when parents are not allowed to say what they’re children may or may not read in the classroom.
And I haven’t noticed any odors in Walmart, except in the candle aisle. ???
Banning books?
I turned on the TV just now and saw an Ad selling medicine to help old people get it on, showed during the break of a program where a slovenly woman was being confronted by 3 men all of whom possibly fathered her child.
We have greater problems than the sex in Shakespeare.
Μολὼν λάβε
Local entities should be able to make those decisions. You or I may not agree with them, and if we live in that locality, we can lift our voices, however the local population should have the right to decide what is in their children’s libraries at school. Frankly, I don’t know why anyone gets very upset about it. It is far too easy to get books today, so that if the school library doesn’t carry something a parent believes their child should read, they can run out and buy it on ebay or amazon.
Then comes youporn.com and its ilk, and banning Shakespearean sex themes seems quaint.
There should’nt be any banning of books in public (government) school libraries because there shouldn’t be any public (government) schools.
The trouble is that in government schools, you have a captive audience with zero choice control. Most students go to a particular school because their parents live in a government drawn “school district”, not because of a positive choice by parents to send them there.
In other words, government should not be involved in education, period.
Books are not ‘banned’ in schools.
Let me repeat this BOOKS ARE NOT BANNED IN SCHOOLS.
The word ‘banned’ is completely inaccurate.
Parents protest when kids are *assigned* books to read which are not appropriate for their age.
That means they *have* to read them to pass a course.
Many of these books are very poorly written, are merely politically-correct crap, and have a great deal of graphic sexual content.
Parents have every right to protest.
The books are not banned. They are available everywhere. The kid can read them on their own if they want.
The trouble is that most of these books are badly written and boring except for the graphic sexual content.
The Bean Field, Snow Falling On
Cedars, etc.
They are not banned -— they are assigned and parents protest.
Don’t liberals always say, ‘get more involved in your child’s schooling’?
the ‘banned’ sh!it p!sses me off!
Errr... by not banning books?!?!?
Define “banned,” Mister article-writer.
There’s the rub: All too often, books are said to be “banned” whenever a school board decides that a particular book isn’t appropriate for a given class. Often, this is largely done due to the age of the kids.
Example: When I was in gifted-ed in fifth grade (a tiny group of about 6-8 kids), the teacher assigned us Candide by Voltaire. It’s got some racy parts (albeit by implication) and had some female-topless illustrations, so it almost got pulled from the curriculum. It didn’t, but I wouldn’t have considered that “OMG THEY BANNED VOLTAIRE!” I would have considered that a judgment that Candide was a tad racy for 12-year-olds, even gifted ones, in a public school.
Similarly, Huckleberry Finn often is said to be “banned” because a school board decides that 5th or 6th graders are usually going to be too young to realize that, despite the uses of the N-word in it, Jim (the negro slave character who is called by that term) is the most virtuous person in the book and helps Huck realize that sometimes what “everyone says” is right, is wrong. Those school boards simply believe that the book should await high school years, typically. But how does this often play out? “OMG BANNED HUCK FINN!!!!11”
If a kid doesn’t read “The Grapes of Wrath” in middle school in a class and can’t check it out from the middle school library, why can’t he get it from the public library?Why can’t he read it in high school? Why can’t he read it as an adult? Not every book out there has to be read before someone graduates from 12th grade. There are still 70 years or more of reading time after age 18.
At the rate of dumming down going on in schools books will no longer be needed.