To Kill A Mockingbird Be Banned Essay

Burned and Banned To Kill A Mockingbird and Slaughterhouse-5 are some of the most iconic books in American history. Though, these books are not admired by all. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, was pulled from a high-school reading list due to “inappropriate language”. Slaughterhouse-5, written by Kurt Vonnegut, was burned in a school’s furnace because of its use of curse words. Vonnegut, a month later, wrote an angry letter to the school board chairman, sharing his thoughts on their actions. The books To Kill A Mockingbird and Slaughterhouse-5 are very important to student education, and should not be banned, these books are classics, they can teach important lessons, and getting rid of these books can be extremely insulting to the author. Classics teach students about history, in a way that could never be replaced by a newer book. Almost all older books involve curse words, because that is how people talked, and there was less censorship in those days. It is …show more content…
Without literature, we most likely would not have an education. Books, especially classics, explain to us and make us feel the horrors of history, and help us understand how to prevent us from making these mistakes again. While trying to rationalise why the school district should not have burned his books, Kurt Vonnegut tells the reader that “[his books] beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are” (Vonnegut). This book, as discussed earlier, replays historically accurate information, down to the very words that working men and soldiers used during this time. To Kill a Mockingbird, the other book banned by a school teaches students that “compassion and empathy are not dependent upon race or education” (Nelson) These are very important lessons that children in school must learn early in their life in order to be become kind and successful