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If Fahrenheit 451 was part of your high school’s English curriculum back in the day, you may be surprised to learn just how enduringly relevant Ray Bradbury’s dystopia still is today. As this week’s feature, South Burlington writer Eden August-Rain crafts a persuasive personal essay centered on the subject of book bans and their negative impact on growing American minds.
Book bans
By Eden August-Rain, 15, of South Burlington
Parents shouldn’t be able to ban books from school libraries. In 2018 alone, the American Library Association recorded requests for 347 books to be banned in the United States. Of those attempting to get them banned, 32% were parents.
I love reading – there’s nothing better than a good book. Sometimes the books I read are explicit, but their explicit content doesn’t immediately sully their value. It doesn’t cancel out all the education provided within them. It’s wild, the amount of growing and learning we do with the assistance of books. Books help kids grow their view of the whole world. No other content can put you straight into someone else’s life like a book can.
Author Robie H. Harris is among those who have commented on these bans, saying, “I think these books look at the topics, the concerns, the worry, the fascination that kids have today… It’s the world in which they’re living.” I can see from her perspective. Parents want to control the kind of content their kids see, but getting books banned doesn’t stop their children from seeing it. Banning a book from a school library is taking away the opportunity for other students to read and learn from it. Of course you can limit what your own child can view, but I don’t think taking away that option from every child in a school district is an appropriate response to a piece of mature literature.
There have been dozens of studies on books that have influenced young people for the better. Books like those in the Harry Potter series, which have been banned in some places for religious reasons, are shown to make young people have better attitudes about immigrants, refugees, and those of the LGBTQ community. That’s because books can change your perspective. If a young person reads a book from the point of view of a member of a marginalized group, they will be more understanding and have fewer judgments against that culture or minority in the future. All in all, I understand the wish to shield your child – and, of course, you as a parent can choose that. But books are for whoever wishes to read them, learn from them, and grow from them.
