"I never knew a girl who was ruined by a book. " -- James Walker

This is adieu, everyone. This shall be my final blog post on this subject. I have enjoyed writing about this issue because over the years, it has been placed on the back burner and no one really thought about it. Hopefully, someone got enjoyment from this blog and hopefully someone who didn’t know a lot about book banning became informed by reading my blog posts and my reading lists and my extra things like my profile essay and my newsletter.

Throughout this semester, I have written about the issue of book banning. I chose this issue because it is something that is close to my heart and it is also something that needed to be bumped into the spotlight because it is very important. I started out knowing that not many people knew about book banning and if they did, they only knew the bare minimum and it was most likely wrong information.

I wrote about the different reasons why books are challenged and then are banned. I also talked about real life stories where book banning was taking place and how it was affecting the community over all.

I also did two blog posts that focuses on two authors that I believe are amazing and are widely known by almost everyone: J.K. Rowling and William Shakespeare. Both of them have had works that have been banned at one point or another and J.K. Rowling has even spoken about her thoughts on the whole idea of book banning and how it pertains to her and her books (Harry Potter).

I also wrote a post that dealt with a certain work, Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind. I mainly decided to write about that play because it has a long history of being banned due to the sexual content and the other adult themes that it contains. This play is amazing and I believe that everyone should read it at one point in their life but others didn’t seem to think so. Over the course of 100 years, the book was banned. That speaks levels about why books are banned.

I did enjoy writing about this topic but I don’t think I will be doing any more posting in this blog space. I feel like I’ve equipped enough information for anyone to look at who has questions about book banning. There are 16 annotated links in my Required Reading List that deal with book banning in some way. There are also a Fact Sheet and Newsletter that both deal with book banning and there is a Profile Essay that is about Dr. Rudolph Almasy, and English professor at West Virginia University. He teaches banned books regularly and he knew a lot about this issue.

So, I hope that more people come and read this blog and I hope that after they have read it, they will leave with a new view on book banning. I also hope that if they didn’t know a lot about book banning, they leave here with more knowledge about this issue and I hope that they spread it around to their friends and family. So, thank you to everyone who has read this blog and enjoyed it and thank you to everyone who has yet to read this blog and enjoys it once they do.

"Did you ever hear anyone say, 'That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me'?" -- Joseph Henry Jackson

I decided to talk about a playwright this week. He is one of my favorite playwright’s because of one specific work that helped shape me into the person I am today. Frank Wedekind is that playwright. Wedekind was a German born playwright and his most famous work is Spring’s Awakening. Wedekind is associated with Expressionism because of his writing which criticized bourgeois attitudes, particularly geared towards sex. He is also credited as a major influence to Epic Theatre.

Wedekind’s first major work is Spring’s Awakening or Frühlings Erwachen in German. This play was written in 1891 but wasn’t performed until 1906. Spring’s Awakening is a play that is about material that some teenagers go through in their lives. This play has a subtitle that says, A Children’s Tragedy. That should already have you clued in by saying, “Wait a minute, tragedy? What?” Well, this play is very much a tragedy, but it carries a message with it.

The play is about a group of German students who are growing up in a sexually oppressed town. The focus is mainly on two of these children, Melchior and Wendla. They are about fourteen years old and they also become sexually involved, even though they know they shouldn’t be. The parents of these teenagers do nothing to tell them about sex or pregnancy or anything like that.

That is what Wedekind was trying to show. He was trying to show that it’s stupid to not inform your children of important things such a sex and pregnancy.

The other characters in the book also become involved in some type of sexual way. There are two boys, Hanschen and Ernst, who express their feelings toward each other, there are also Georg who had a romantic dream involving his mother, and poor Moritz is ‘plagued by horrid dreams’ as he puts it.

Moritz is another crucial character. He is the third main character and while the story mainly focuses on Melchior and Wendla, Moritz is a key character who shouldn’t be ignored. He struggles with fantasies that he doesn’t know how to deal with, he struggles in school and he struggles at home. He doesn’t know what to do and he ultimately ends up making the wrong decision.

This play deals with themes like sex, pregnancy, homosexuality, abortion and suicide. These themes weren’t very well thought of during the 1890’s and early 1900’s, which is why this play has been banned countless times. This play is crucial to my issue because, while during the time period it was written, it was very edgy and seeing as it was making fun of the German society of the time; it is so very relevant to my issue and to today in general.

I first read this play in 2006 after I had seen the musical Spring Awakening, which is based on this play. It is a rock musical that carries the same story, with a slightly different ending from the original play. I fell in love with this musical and with this play. I was sixteen when I read it and saw the musical and I have to say that it did have a profound effect on me. It was relevant to me when I read because I was sixteen and it is still relevant now. I think that every teenager should read it because, while at some points it can seem a tad melodramatic, it is very poignant and well written and has an excellent message.

"There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance." -- Goethe

So sorry that the previous had been deleted. I honestly don't know how that happened because I normally don't edit my posts once they're up, but somehow, this one was gone when I came to look at my blog. So, I'll try my best to fill it with a meaningful post.

Over the semester I've included blog posts about many different things but they all relate to book banning or censorship of books in some way. I feel now that I may end up repeating myself several times, but that just proves the urgency of this issue. Book banning is wrong and shouldn't be used as a means of censorship. I do understand that some age groups shouldn't read certain books, but I also feel that the person should decide if they want to read it or not, not someone else.

There are many books that I've read and after I've read them, I wish I hadn't picked them up at all. Then, there are still so many books out there that I haven't had the pleasure, or displeasure, of reading.

I guess, it just comes down to this: if you want to read a book, you should be able to read it, no matter what someone else says. Some people don't believe that is good though. They want to decide what books are suitable for their children to read. That's not right. No one should be incharge of something like that. It's not like when you're in high school and you have to read certain books because the teacher has them set in the curriculum. It's when someone just decides that a book that is being taught isn't 'right' or 'suitable' for their child to read and petitions for it to be taken out of the schools or the libraries or something like that.

Book banning is not something that should be taken lightly. It is a very serious issue and most people don't know that. They don't know that teachers have lost their jobs over it or that children can be taken out of school because of it. There are other consequences to this issue and none of them are good.

People believe that they are banning books for a good reason but ultimately, it just hurts the people who are not allowed to read them and potentially enjoy them.

"The most common examples of book censorship are in schools and public libraries." -- Herbert Foerstel

This post is going to be about libraries and book banning. I realized that I haven't really covered that area in this blog yet and I'm quite shocked at myself for not including it sooner. This is going to be a summary on an article that I read a few days ago from TIME titled, "Banned Books: A School Librarian's Perspective". Now, most of you probably thought about public libraries when I mentioned the word above, but school libraries are the ones that are more likely to ban books because, while public libraries do have a big percentage of children, schools (excluding colleges and universities) are for children exclusively. With schools like elementary, middle/junior high, and senior high, comes teachers and a school board that are very concerned with what their students read throughout their years at the school.

Sharon Coatney, a school librarian, wrote this article and spoke about her experiences with this one school in particular, an elementary school. The school was in a rural area as well, so that can be taken into account when thinking about why this happened.

She had arrived at her new teaching job to find that the library was in a cage… well, the books that were part of the library were locked in a cage inside of a study hall. The library was only ‘open’ for about two days out of the week. She was a bit… shocked to see that the school had literally locked the books away in a cage and she was also shocked because the kids didn’t have much access to the books that the school had. They only could look at them on maybe two days out of the week.

When Banned Books Week arrives, she thinks about how much her school library has been censored. The books that are in there are there according to the school district’s policy which states that “books must be age-appropriate and related to our school district curriculum”.

Sharon Coatney also has had to ban books as well as expand the school’s collection. She doesn’t call it banning though, she refers to it as ‘selection’. She has to look after the well fare of all of the children who go in and out of her library and make sure that they are protected, but not sheltered.

She also talks about whenever a parent asks for a book to be removed from the library. She states that seeing as the parents are paying for the school in some way and that their child attends the school, they do have a right to ask for a book to be banned. All school libraries have a procedure that is followed when this query comes up and she describes it as a very civil process that I respect. Too often you hear about the banning of books that doesn’t really end in a civil way. It could end with a teacher being fired or the school being sued or something else that is equally wrong.

When a book is removed it can be because of many reasons, the initial criteria wasn’t met, the school board doesn’t deem it fit, and other explanations like that. Mrs. Coatney does go on to say that some parents complain about a book, (she mentions Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson), that they actually think about the entire situation and not just their own personal situation. If they don’t want their child to read it, they stop and think about the other children.

After reading this article, I’ve realized that some people have to ‘ban’ books in order to maintain that natural order the schools need and want. I still believe that everyone should have the right to read anything they want to read, but I do understand that in certain situations, you need to hold off on certain reading materials for certain people.

“Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?” -- Alfred Lord Tennyson

Children. Children are wonderful. They are literally the future of the world. We are damaging their future by challenging and ultimately banning books. Due to challenging and banning of books, more and more children aren’t allowed to read certain books. Granted, I agree when it comes to parenting to restrict what your children read depending on their age, but, once they reach that age of eighteen, they’re pretty much free to read whatever they want. Personally, I think the age is nine because at that point in my life, my mother had no say in what I was reading at that time. But, children are the most important people in the world. They’re going to be the future and they have to live with the consequences of our actions.

I don’t have any children, but my cousins do. One is only seven months old, so she can’t read yet, but her parents do read to her. I know they’re not picking up “In Cold Blood” by Capote and reading that to her. I do believe that there are books that are good for certain age groups, but once a child reaches that age where they want to read whatever they want, the parent needs to let them try it. This situation is very complex because it does depend on the values of the parents and I’m not saying this way is right and that way is wrong because, like I said, I don’t have any children, but I do believe that certain books are appropriate for certain ages.

My other cousins have two children who are going to be nine and seven this year. Now, I don’t see them as much as I’d like to, but their parents are pretty liberal when it comes to what their children read. They pretty much let them read whatever they pick up or whatever they get as gifts. Most parents wouldn’t do this. I do know some parents that wouldn’t let their kids watch Nickelodeon when they were growing up because they felt the television shows were too racy for kids… even though the shows were marketed towards children. That just shows the values of parents. They definitely vary between all parents.

I understand that children are very impressionable, but if we don’t let them read certain things, they’ll never know the wonders of Harry Potter or Shakespeare or Frederick Douglass or any of the many great authors that are out there.

J.K. Rowling actually put out a book based on a book that was mentioned in the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It is a children’s book that is full of children’s stories… kind of like Mother Goose but focuses on witches and wizards. It’s called The Tales of Beedle the Bard. There are great stories in this book and one of my friends told me that cousin has a son, who is about ten years old. Their cousin doesn’t believe in witchcraft or anything like that, so she doesn’t allow her son to read Harry Potter. My friend read some stories from Beedle the Bard to her young cousin and he loved them. He begged his mother to let him read them along with Harry Potter and while his mother didn’t really agree with it, she let her son try them out. She realized that he was at that age where he’d want to read more and more and she wouldn’t always be able to control what he read. My friend informed me that her cousin started reading the Harry Potter series and found that she enjoyed the books immensely.

That is just one story where the parents come to the understanding that they won’t always have control of their children. There are plenty of stories to the contrary of that one, but it always makes me happy to see that books prevailed.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. " -- William Shakespeare

I thought it was time that I wrote about our old friend, Bill Shakespeare. Shakespeare is regarded by many as one of the greatest writers ever. I happen to agree, but that is not to say that everyone on the planet agrees that Shakespeare is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I have read the complete works of Shakespeare and I also own the leather bound edition from Barnes & Noble. I love Shakespeare and think that he is absolutely brilliant but there are people out there who believe that Shakespeare was a fraud or they just don’t like his writing at all. When I was talking to Dr. Almasy, we started talking about Shakespeare and why most schools, if not the majority of middle or senior high schools, make their students read Romeo & Juliet. I had to read it in middle school and in high school. Romeo & Juliet has probably one of the most warped themes and probably isn’t ‘suitable’ for kids to read. Dr. Almasy and I discussed how certain books get challenged or banned in the school setting but Shakespeare usually remains untouched, especially this story about the star-crossed lovers.

Romeo & Juliet is probably Shakespeare’s second most known play, next to Hamlet. It, along with Hamlet, is read in schools. In case you haven’t read Romeo & Juliet, I’ll give you little synopsis. The base of this story is about a boy and a girl who fall in love. The two kids happen to be the children of feuding families and they go against odds to be together. (I really hate telling the ending of things if people haven’t read it, but the term star-crossed lovers didn’t trigger something, then I can’t help you). At the end of the story, Juliet ends up faking her death so that she can be together with Romeo. Romeo finds out that she is dead, goes to see her and ends up killing himself. Juliet wakes up, sees that Romeo is dead, and kills herself.

People ban Huck Finn because of the ‘n-word’ but they don’t ban this because two people kill themselves because they can’t be together? To me, this seems a bit warped. Now, I don’t support book banning of any kind because, no matter how badly written the books is or the subject matter of the book, every book deserves to be read, but, if you’re going to ban something because children shouldn’t read it, Romeo & Juliet would be one that would be banned. If someone else had written it and it didn’t have the name Shakespeare attached to it, it would probably be banned.

I always hated reading this in class because we would have to read it out loud and we would be assigned parts. I always wanted to be Mercutio but I’d get stuck with Lady Capulet or Lady Montague or, god forbid, Juliet.

Shakespeare also wrote Hamlet, probably his most known play. Again, if it did not have the name Shakespeare attached to it; it would probably be banned in schools because of the content. But, it just goes to show you how powerful a name can be and how contradictory banning and challenging books can be.

“All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions…” -- George Bernard Shaw

After having to do an interview for our topic, I found myself thinking of other perspectives of this issue. So far, I’ve covered my perspective, the unknowing person’s perspective, the opposition’s perspective, but I have yet to cover one of the most important perspectives: the teacher.

Teachers are probably one of the most important people in the lives of students. They literally teach them the proper things they need to know in life… well, some of the most important things needed. They are the ones that have to deal with the repercussions when they decide they want to teach a book that has been banned or teach something that a parent doesn’t agree with.

One such case of this happened at a school near me. The teacher had assigned The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to her class. It is considered to be a classic novel so; she wanted her class to read it. One of the students went home and told their parents that they were going to be reading the Mark Twain novel and it didn’t sit too well with them. They went to the school board and wanted the book to be removed from the curriculum because they didn’t want their child to read it. The teacher decided that she was going to fight it. She didn’t win in the end and she had to remove the novel from the curriculum. She just wanted to teach the children this classic novel that has been read by so many people before them and she wasn’t allowed because one child’s parents didn’t want their child to read it.

The parents reasoning for not wanting their child to read it… the use of the ‘n’ word. I’m not comfortable with saying or ever writing, or in this case, typing the word, so I will just be referring to it as the ‘n’ word. They didn’t think that students should be reading a book with such profanity in it and they took it to the school board. The teacher could have done several other things instead of fighting it. She could have considered the rules of the district/administration before putting the book in her curriculum; she could have talked it out with the parents and the school board to try and reason with them instead of ‘fighting the system’ so to speak. She could have just removed it after the complaint was lodged, but the one thing she should have considered and probably done, was to just substitute the novel with another one.

Teachers go through a lot when they make their curriculum and they have to follow certain rules and make sure that those rules are obeyed. They also need to be prepared in case something like that incident would happen to them. That’s one thing that isn’t really covered in most teaching programs at universities and colleges. That is also one thing that Dr. Almasy, who I interviewed, is trying to do in his English class. I admire him because this is important information that future teachers need to know. They need to know how to react if something they want to teach is challenged and they also need to know the alternatives if they do have to change something.

This is important information and all future teachers should prepare themselves. If they don’t learn these in a class, then when they get hired, they should familiarize themselves with the rules of the district and administration and they should also see which books are the most challenged and also familiarize themselves with the area and see how conservative or liberal the community is to determine which books will be appropriate to teach.