Censoring The Written Form

By: Miles Croft

Books are wonderful, they allow us to escape to other worlds and live new lives, they explore many dark but true themes of life, Finding love in other ways, In the past year, the number of books challenged for censorship has risen 92%, but why is this so? Hate against others of ethnic origin, Trauma, Sexually explicit, Fractures in family life/Disrespect for Family, Dark times of war, or Propaganda. Tennessee lawmakers passed HB 843, which states: “Materials in a library collection must be suitable for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access the material.

A book that is commonly banned, but its reasons are misconstrued are The Hunger Games trilogy. Though the Ideals that are being discussed are not for elementary kids, 8th-12th grade kids should read this book. Every year Panem holds a competition that puts 24 teens against each other in a fight to the death. Though yes the books do have some violence and deaths as the nature of the competition is a death fight, It’s rarely done in a gratuitous way or depicted in a gruesome way. People also claimed the book to be anti-family, But the main driving force behind the story is Katniss Evergreen (who is the main character) Gives herself up for a spot in the Hunger Games after her younger is picked instead, and the whole reason Katniss fights is to protect her younger sister. It was also called Anti-Religion and Satanic despite NO mention of any religion or group worship. But the main reason It’s banned is the message of standing to corrupt government, Countries are just afraid of people standing up for they believe is right so it was banned.

Sometimes books are wrongfully accused of being controversial even though they are not so, one such book is a Children's book by Alan Gratz Titled: “Ban This Book” ( which is about an african american girl wanting to check out her favorite book, only to discover that it is banned due to complaints from one of her peer’s parents, so she starts an banned library of banned books in her locker, Ban This Book was challenged for being supposed “sexual” content. It was also Banned for mentioning other banned books.

If books can be banned for mentioning other banned books, Then what is stopping people banning books for overlapping themes of previous banned books? One way to hopefully prevent books being banned is to introduce a rating system akin to The MPAA rating system (G,PG,PG-13,R). In the future I hope that people will just relax and let people read what they want to read instead of having parents squabble over books. My Life philosophy is don’t force others to bend to your opinions and don’t force a ban over a book that will only your child's point of view, instead take a look at the book in question and look over it, if it’s truly needing a ban for the whole school then push for one if affects you then simply don’t allow your child to check out books the involve similar ideas.

Miles Croft is a Junior at Poudre High School and a first-time reporter for the Poudre Press, He hopes to write on upcoming books and chickens. Come back every other week for a deep dive into books and the world of literature!