Poll: Readers weigh-in on banning books at school

 

Reader comments: Tell us more about how you’d handle the problem and where you’d draw the line.

 

• Books need to be read completely before a decision is made to ban them or not. Don’t just ban them because someone else said it’s the right thing; read the book yourself before you decide.

 

• Who has the right to restrict what someone else reads? How do you develop critical thinking and empathy if you are not exposed to different books? Berkeley County has gone too far, again.

 

• If it is racy, or has foul language, or inappropriate pictures it may need to be removed, but I think restrictions would be good.

 

• Talking about uncomfortable things is a part of life. Just because something is offensive to one person/group does not mean that the choice should be taken away from others. If you learn anything, learn to think for yourself!

 

• Young Adult fiction has become a cesspool for shock value and sexually explicit material. It’s perfectly reasonable for parents to be concerned about what agenda-driven and/or prurient content “progressives” are now peddling. The overwhelming majority of books cropping up on the ALA’s most challenged list are books written for kids that are justifiably deemed age inappropriate for one reason or another. This includes heavy doses of explicit sex, rape, incest, gratuitous violence and the glorification of heavy drug abuse. Children cannot possibly fully understand these concepts. Frankly exposing them to this material at such a young and vulnerable age is shameless, harmful and exploitative.

 

• Parents and local governments should jointly be able to decide what reading materials are suitable.

 

• People should worry more about what’s on our children’s phones than what’s in their library. Parents worried about banning books: How many hours did your kid spend on the phone this week vs their head in a book? The books aren’t the problem.

 

• Librarians and teachers have degrees and training! I trust them to know what materials are appropriate for different classrooms and library sections. Governments should not censor materials in publicly funded spaces!

 

• I think that books are one of the least concerning issues facing America. If you are not comfortable with a book’s content, do not read it. I’m not opposed to a rating system that fairly categorizes content. With that being said, it just doesn’t seem like an important issue to be tackling. There’s so many things we can do to help improve life for our citizens.

 

• No book should be banned but parents can police what their children read. But if you think they aren’t seeing the same content on social media you are kidding yourself. Maybe discuss how you feel about the subject matter and see how the child sees it and why they are interested. Talk about it and use it as an opportunity to reinforce the morals you want to see in your children.

 

• I’m totally against books for sexual orientation or transgender ideology. It is absolutely disgusting especially when another person or institution other than family or parents try to manipulate or explain to little kids! These are the books that I would definitely ban, not only from the library!

 

• I agree that information should never be redacted for anyone, but it makes sense that you should have age restrictions. If they are like movie age restrictions, parents/ legal guardians of the children in question should get to choose if they can or cannot see the book or movie.

 

• If you know anything about kids, you already know that they are highly attracted to that which is banned. If it is that important to you that your children don’t see particular books, then don’t send them to a public school or public library. And while you are at it, take away their

electronic devices. They can and will go online and read anything that you try to ban. Most parents are just happy that their kids want to read, no matter what the content!

 

• Classics should be left alone. It is part of our history.

 

• …As I saw on a sign recently, “A child who reads will be an adult who thinks.” Couldn’t we use more of those?

 

• I’m not aware of any books that I feel need to be banned from libraries. I am not opposed to a book with explicit content being marked as such. I do not think we need to re-categorize/rate all books that have been written. If you are not comfortable with a book, don’t read it.

If your child is interested in a topic or a book that you are concerned about, read it with them and help them understand the topic that they are clearly interested in understanding.

 

• Books shouldn’t be banned, but categorized and a rating could be an additional level of categorization.