“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee has been taught to and loved by WPS students for decades, but even so, this novel has been banned in school districts from California to Mississippi. It was removed from schools in Texas because it was “politically, racially, or socially offensive,” according to Houstonia magazine. This is just one title on the list of 625 banned books in that state. Even though Massachusett’s banned book count cannot compare, there have still been a few books removed from the Boston Public Library. We believe that no books, chosen as age appropriate by trained educators, should be banned in school or library settings as all such content should be available for any student, and a lack of diversity in books can narrow a student’s intellectual growth.
“I don’t like the idea of books being banned in a school setting as it restricts information [about] what other people think of the world,” freshman Gabriela Duran Garcia said.
Book banning was first introduced to control content that was deemed inappropriate or controversial in order to “protect” its audience, usually children or young adults, from potentially disturbing information. But as time went on, banning books became percieved by many teachers and librarians across the country as negatively limiting education because it prevents readers from learning about different viewpoints and ideas.
“If school administrators are attempting to limit even elective reading, what does the future hold for students who want access to all books – classic and contemporary, books that might broaden their understanding of the world?” asked Literary Hub magazine.
The number of books banned each year is only increasing; since 2017, approximately 6,000 books have been banned, and out of those years, the 2022-2023 school year had the highest rate of challenges.
According to the Education Week newsletter, “Frequently challenged subjects include sex and sexuality that is not violent or abusive, critical race theory, ethnicity/race, racial inequities, gender, and non-traditional family structures.”
In the WHS library, the wide range of books are regularly updated, and librarians create a banned book display annually to educate students on the kinds of books that have been banned elsewhere. The librarians believe that offering a wide range of books gives students choice about what content they are interested in, and that everybody is entitled to read what they want.
“Reading freely is the best; books shouldn’t ever be banned because everybody has a choice on the books they are reading and you shouldn’t limit that,” WHS librarian Alida Hanson said. “Everyone needs to be represented in the library collection.”
As communities ban books, fewer people have knowledge of different cultures, backgrounds, and identities. If there were more educational books available to students focused on every culture, race, gender, sexuality, and background, there would be less cultural ignorance in the world.
Parents do have control over their children’s content intake at home, but the librarians’ role is different.
“[Parents] have every right to examine what their children are reading and take books away from them. That is their right as a parent, but that’s not my right as a librarian,” Hanson said.
Parents and others who have concerns about books available in school libraries in Weston currently have an option to raise their concerns, according to the official WHS district policy on Library Materials Selection and Adoption.
“If an individual with a bonafide connection to the Weston School District raises a challenge to resources kept in a school’s library, the following procedure will be followed…” the Reconsideration Procedures section of the district policy states, listing the steps one must take to question a book’s presence in the library. “If the director [of technology and libraries] does not find there is good cause, they will notify the complainant with a brief explanation of the finding. Upon a finding of good cause for complaint, the director…shall convene a materials reconsideration committee.”
While we understand why there needs to be a policy like this, we feel that in general school libraries should keep all of their books as it isn’t fair to remove a book just because one parent files a complaint. Even so, some books in the library at WHS have been challenged due to “inappropriate content.”
“The book, ‘Some Boys Aren’t Blue,’ everybody was going bananas challenging it. What they’ve done is create a list that has gone out, where they list the page that has a passage on it that they don’t like, and then they attack it,” Hanson said, explaining how these kinds of challenges are made by people who have not read the full book. This book is an LGBTQ coming-of-age memoir that is considered age-appropriate for high schoolers. “This book has won a lot of awards. It is not good in any library to challenge a well-reviewed, important, and great book for just a part of it without understanding what the whole thing is.”
Fostering a love of reading in students and exposing them to a variety of stories contributes to the growth of open-minded people, and that is why we oppose books being removed from libraries.