Should we prevent children from reading "bad" books?

In my mind, no book should be burned, banned, censored or rewritten. But I have come across several "Parent" groups that want many books, many classics as well, prevented from being read by school children. Some of the claims can be vaild such as not letting a 3rd grader read a book with a lot of profane language and sex but banning it from the schools is no answer. Some of the reasons I've come across are....

Promotion,acceptance, or support of Homosexuality.
Language
Violence
Teaches "bad things" (Such as questioning authority)
Sex
Racism

And the list goes on and on. But it is sick to see that people want books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn being prevented from being read by kids because of the word "'n-word'".

I believe that it is a growing threat that groups like these wants books, many classics included, from being totally banned, censored, and/or rewritten in schools. A book I read in 3rd grade was banned. It was entiteled "How to eat friend worms", since it promotes a bad thing.

Someone once said "Censorship like charity should begin in the home, but unlike charity it should end there" and I wholeheartidly agree.

I have taken it up to read controversial books on my free time in my school, because I enjoy the books and its defiance against those who want to ban it. I've struck up some aruguments over "A Clockwork Orange", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Mein Kampf" already.

But my question is should we in schools prevent children from reading books and ban them from school shelves, books like those I mentioned and many others because of language, racism, promoting "bad things" etc. Or should it be a job of the parent? What good comes from preventing kids from reading "bad" books? Any good at all?

Very simple, in my views as a parent I make posible to have available for my children any book they want to read for their age I did that for them when they were kids and now as adults I told them to get their hands on anything they want, and never stop learning or questioning anything that they don't like.

These so call "parents" can ban books for their children but they are not banning any from mine.

Banning a book is the first step on the road to fascism... the day we start doing that is the day my rioting buddies and I load up the van and head to Washington with some submachine guns.

Depends on the book, I guess.
I've read ( listened ) Huckleberry Finn even befor school. Sounded rather interesting... yet if there was some word, I could be always changed with another one.

And what is "bad things". I believe questioning authority is a good one

I can tell you: when I was a kid I read litterally everything I could lay my hands on (I would do it today, if I had the time). I was attending a Catholic school at the time. One day my teacher told my parents that they needed to limit my access to what I could read, because I was asking too many questions, not all of them welcome (like asking about evolution theory, eh, eh!). They duly complied, because they feared that I could get into troubles with the teachers (I am always been noted for my "foul" temper since preschool). They took away most of my books and locked them in the cellar. I felt like a junkie without his daily dose so I took a drastic decision... I went to my father's bookshelf and started picking out his sci-fi books. When my parents saw this, they acknoweledged their mistake and gave me back my books... Beware of those that want to limit your access to information because in their heart they dream to be your masters.

Books should not be banned, but we must excercise own judgement as to the credibility after having read the book.

The good books will always over-shadow the bad ones (at least in theory).

Originally posted by Odd
Banning a book is the first step on the road to fascism... the day we start doing that is the day my rioting buddies and I load up the van and head to Washington with some submachine guns.

You're kinda late there, there's a good few books banned by certain states, and some on a federal level. I saw an article on the subject recently actually, can't remember where though. I I find it I'll scan in a table and timeline they had that was quite interesting.

Have any of these groups ever heard of "freedom of press?" Just in case their plans work, we need to start forcing more kids to read 1984.

Edit: Have them read Brave New World while they're at it. Let's see if they want to ban books after that.

[edit on 22-12-2004 by invader_chris]

I think i heared something about harry potter being banned in some placese in america(i cant rember if it was a state/toen/city/other) because it promoted witch carft.

Originally posted by Elfwood
I think i heared something about harry potter being banned in some placese in america(i cant rember if it was a state/toen/city/other) because it promoted witch carft.

My brother goes to a Catholic school and one of the bookcases in their library is all Harry Potter books. I think that it is mostly ultra-conservatives who want everything their way that are doing this. My family is Catholic and they don't really care what books I read, movies/shows I watch (My dad asked me if I wanted to watch Saw with him last week, I declined his offer.), video games I play, music I listen to, and things like that.

[edit on 22-12-2004 by invader_chris]

What a stupid question.

Why would you want the government to control what you read?
Monitoring and reading with children is a parent's responsibility.
Why would you want the government to take the responsibility of a parent?
How much government control do you personally need?

You should try reading Feirenheit 451...
...before it gets banned.

[edit on 22-12-2004 by jupiter869]

Banning books or more directly, banning communication, is just plain sick and is hands down probably the worst possible thing people could ever do. What we are really talking about here is in fact Communication too. Communication of ideas, thoughts, dreams, fears, history, scientific knowledge, etc. etc. That is all it is, just words and ideas and nothing more. If a person is so damn helpless that the line between 'Shooting Heroin' and 'Reading about shooting Heroin' can no longer be found, then the problem is within that person. 'War' and 'Reading about War' are NOT the same. 'Being Gay or Violent, or a Nazi or whatever' is NOT equal to 'Reading about them.' The fact that some people actually do not understand that automatically is completely beyond me.

But let's take a look at these Dangerous Materials and why they are so Dangerous.

Language
Oooohhh.....Bad language. Grow up!! Think about it so called Bad language for a second and you should realize how stupid it is to have rules against certain sounds when spoken or read. DUCK, LUCK, SUCK, BUCK, MUCK, etc... All just fine. But you change the first letter to an F and you need to be banned and sent to hell. Sure makes total sense to me....

Violence
Well, there goes the bible plus every single History Text book every created. That should lighten up them schools.

Sex
Oh yeah. Cause we all know how strange and evil Sex is. I mean, back in the old days almost nobody had sex. It was only those Demonic Occultists and Savages who did stuff like that. I mean come on people!!! Where did you come from huh??? A freakin' stork??? Grow up!!


I don't have time to continue my 'soapbox rant' right now. But I think most of you, those who've made it this far anyway, have a good idea of what I'm getting at. Those who don't know where I'm going with this. Well, the reason you're lost is cause YOU BANNED EVERY RESOURCE OUT OF FEAR AND IGNORANCE LEAVING YOU LOST AND CONFUSED FOREVER. ENJOY LIVING IN YOUR SMALL MINDED EXISTENCE. :d

Well when it comes to books in schools, they should just probably have the parent fill out a permission slip to check out the more controversial books. YOu fill this slip out in the begining of the year or semester. and then send the parents a copy of all the books that the child checked out every month. If you care enough to look over the list , then go ahead, if you don't then don't. Of course they can ban all the books they want in schools, When i was in my early teens i just walked to the local public library and read whatever i wanted. they always had a better selection than school.

Uh, this was done a long time ago, me one of them. With lists of books banned. Like the Earth Childrens series, Harry Potter, Lord of the Flies, stuff like that. But yes, it is stupid to ban books. One way to make sure everyone reads something is to ban it.(This came from Harry Potter 5. I know, 18 and reading Harry Potter, bite me)

Originally posted by JediMaster
In my mind, no book should be burned, banned, censored or rewritten. But I have come across several "Parent" groups that want many books, many classics as well, prevented from being read by school children. Some of the claims can be vaild such as not letting a 3rd grader read a book with a lot of profane language and sex but banning it from the schools is no answer. Some of the reasons I've come across are....

Promotion,acceptance, or support of Homosexuality.
Language
Violence
Teaches "bad things" (Such as questioning authority)
Sex
Racism

And the list goes on and on. But it is sick to see that people want books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn being prevented from being read by kids because of the word "'n-word'".

I believe that it is a growing threat that groups like these wants books, many classics included, from being totally banned, censored, and/or rewritten in schools. A book I read in 3rd grade was banned. It was entiteled "How to eat friend worms", since it promotes a bad thing.

Someone once said "Censorship like charity should begin in the home, but unlike charity it should end there" and I wholeheartidly agree.

I have taken it up to read controversial books on my free time in my school, because I enjoy the books and its defiance against those who want to ban it. I've struck up some aruguments over "A Clockwork Orange", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Mein Kampf" already.

But my question is should we in schools prevent children from reading books and ban them from school shelves, books like those I mentioned and many others because of language, racism, promoting "bad things" etc. Or should it be a job of the parent? What good comes from preventing kids from reading "bad" books? Any good at all?

Everything must be learnt, if it was thought of once before it will be thought of again, so might as well get it done and over with, learn it, for its rights and wrongs... *Grok it .. and then move on to the next...

*To Grok... see Heinlein's Stranger in a strange land
means to understand utterly and completely

This is funny that this came up, as I am currently in a high school and we had to pick a free reading book of our choice. Then. the teacher passes around a notification form and we had to write in the book, have our parents sign it, and then the teacher had to check the book! The teacher said he had to do this because parents complained about what their child was reading, etc.

I find the whole thing very silly. This is why some may become discouraged from reading, when we are forced to read a certain age limit of books. If people want to read more advanced books, but are not allowed, it could turn them away from reading later in life. Come On! It is a book. There are a lot worse things on TV and videos that people are watching.

[edit on 22-12-2004 by compwiz32190]

I dont think any one or any group of people have the write (I konw its right) to ban any form of literature, I read whatever I want and the only change I've gone through is learning more.
What is really sad is that there arw three states in america where Porky pig is banned because he doesnt wear pants.

Originally posted by jupiter869
What a stupid question.

Why would you want the government to control what you read?
Monitoring and reading with children is a parent's responsibility.
Why would you want the government to take the responsibility of a parent?
How much government control do you personally need?

You should try reading Feirenheit 451...
...before it gets banned.

[edit on 22-12-2004 by jupiter869]

Jupiter I am not inquring to that why we should ban them, but I was tossing a question on the table for us to discuss. If you read my post you would see I already have an opinion on this.

There is one ultra-conservative parent group called PABBIS (Parents Againts Bad Books in Schools), and they had a list of books that need to be banned. Some of the reasons they wanted a couple of books banned because, they show that homosexuality is ok and normal, language, and questioning authority. All pretty much asinine reasons. I remember reading about this one book being banned since it depicted torture, and the book had no torture in it.

Plus its sad to see great books banned because of one complaint. A black student complained about the use of the word "'n-word'" in Huck Finn and the school pulled it off of its shelves and from classes.

.
Two points,

1) IMO children learning to read is a good thing. Almost anything that gets them interested in doing so is good.

2) Restricting the reading materials of one's offspring implies that you know more than your offspring. IMO any adult who thinks they are anything other than a more experienced child is in la la land.
.