September 21-27 is an annual celebration for banned books that people protest to get the freedom to read, books are usually banned because of the censorship it contains. It may also have religious, political, and moral interests. Animo Pat Brown’s Student Council has collaborated with a promotion to advertise students to read banned books ranging from classics to teen fiction.
Recently the Riverside Unified School District middle schools has banned the best selling book The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. The reason this book was banned was because a parent thought this book contained crude language, had a morbid plot, and was sexually attributed; which was too inappropriate for her young children. Parents seek to keep literature limited when educating their children because not all parents want their children to be exposed to mature language and scenes.
We have interviewed an English teacher in APB, asking about her opinion on banned books. Ms. Freeman, a 12th grade teacher, says “The Fact that there are banned books creates a lot of important discussions. There is a lot of controversy and debate over whether books should be banned which is important to the literary community so that we can have meaningful conversations around this topic.”
Ms. Freeman thinks that banning books is not necessary because it affects the conversations in class about literature. Ms. Freeman also says that Books should not be banned because some of the books that have been banned, make people think they reveal sexist messages when in reality they are children books.
When asking a student in APB, Margarita Serrano, what she thought about banned books she said, “books should not be banned at all because that means that the country or someone is trying to hide something.”
We interviewed 2 students in APB including Margarita, they both said they liked the book The Catcher in the Rye, which was one of the banned books that they read in APB. These two students thought The Catcher In The Rye should not be banned because they did not find anything offensive about it or anything sexually contributed. This makes us question if books should continue to be banned.