Banned Books No More German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented a highly successful printing press that the Church took advantage of to spread their beliefs in 1454 (Special Collections). The exact number of books that have been printed since then is unknown; however, Leonid Taycher, a Google software engineer, has stated on the blog “Google Books Search” that there are about 146 million “printed and bound” books. Like people, not all books are the same and each one has a different message that maybe not everyone will agree with. For many years, books have been challenged, or even banned, due to people’s disagreement about the content of books and if it is appropriate to be read. Libraries, authors, and book-lovers must rally together to
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This award-winning Young Adult novel is about a boy named Junior, “a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot” (Alexie). The National Coalition Against Censorship is an organization that was formed in 1973 and they strive to “promote freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression” (NCAC). Sarah Hoffman, the Youth Free Expression Program Manager at NCAC provided a case study about a recent event concerning this book. Before she joined NCAC, Hoffman organized the PEN American Center’s Freedom to Write Program which fights “fighting for the free expression rights of individuals across the globe, specifically advocating on behalf of writers and journalists who had been imprisoned or persecuted for their work.” In March 2015 Sherman Alexie’s book found itself banned from a middle school curriculum in the city of Waterloo, Iowa because one parent made a complaint about profanity and sexual references in the book. The school said that since the complaint was not “formally” made, they did not have to follow their own policy and assemble a review committee for the matter. The teachers tried to fight against the ban, but the superintendent simply said, “It’s done” and the book was removed. It may seem that the people trying to censor these books are only trying to help, but censorship is a real and serious problem that needs to be fixed. One way that it can be fixed is support given
This award-winning Young Adult novel is about a boy named Junior, “a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot” (Alexie). The National Coalition Against Censorship is an organization that was formed in 1973 and they strive to “promote freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression” (NCAC). Sarah Hoffman, the Youth Free Expression Program Manager at NCAC provided a case study about a recent event concerning this book. Before she joined NCAC, Hoffman organized the PEN American Center’s Freedom to Write Program which fights “fighting for the free expression rights of individuals across the globe, specifically advocating on behalf of writers and journalists who had been imprisoned or persecuted for their work.” In March 2015 Sherman Alexie’s book found itself banned from a middle school curriculum in the city of Waterloo, Iowa because one parent made a complaint about profanity and sexual references in the book. The school said that since the complaint was not “formally” made, they did not have to follow their own policy and assemble a review committee for the matter. The teachers tried to fight against the ban, but the superintendent simply said, “It’s done” and the book was removed. It may seem that the people trying to censor these books are only trying to help, but censorship is a real and serious problem that needs to be fixed. One way that it can be fixed is support given