Children’s Literature
While in middle school, we read lots of literature concerning topic such as religion, offensive and polite language, as well as racism and sexually explicit; unsuited to age group among many more. Some of these literature materials used to excite me during that time since they were like a life extensive revelation to my little cocoon of knowledge which was suddenly occupied by strange experiences.
Basically most of the books I was excited reading about were the once related to sex education such as: The colour of earth by Kim Dong Hwa, My Mom’s having a baby! A kid’s Month-by-month Guide to pregnancy by Dori H Butler, Gossip Girl by Cecily V Ziegesar andBrave New Would be by Aldous Huxley, among many others, but this was due to my age at that time since this was the time when young boy and girl relationships were the talk of the day in our classrooms.
However currently the books I might be concerned about would majorly fall under religion diversities specifically on occult or satanic: violence a book by Suzanne Collins. In the past five years a certain interest on understanding religion has cropped leading me to do more research on the realities surrounding the existence of supernatural beings who are powerful than common human beings.
Some of the books we handled during our high school classics were such as; To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee Reasons: offensive language; racism, Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer Reasons: religious viewpoint and violence, Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit, and And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson Reasons: religious, homosexuality, viewpoint, and unacceptable to age group among others. These books especially the one s on sexual education used to excite student so much.
Students enjoyed sexual topics and they used to take them with a lot vigor and concentration. Our teachers used to discuss all the chapters of these books regardless of the short periods allocated for their discussions. These books should be handled with a lot of consideration since many young youths can not be able to handle sexual challenges without being taught the pros and cons of irresponsible and responsible sexual behaviours. More over students should be warned against drug abuse since this has been one of the key areas affecting the youth leading to their untimely and early deaths and other complications.
Animal Farm, by George Orwell http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/animalfarm/summary.htmlthis book focuses a supreme leader (Boar) who gathered the other of the little Manor farm for an assembly in the mega barn. He narrated to them about his awesome dream he previously had that all the animals will live together without disturbance from the human beings to control or oppress them, urging the animals to make it a must to work hard towards achieving such a green pasture. Major went a head to teach them a song called “Beasts of England” which elucidated his dream vision musically.
The animals warmly embraced Majors initiative with great eagerness. Unfortunately, he dead and after about three days after the meeting, his three sons Napoleon, Squealer and Snowball took over his philosophy and implemented it. According to my point of view regarding this book, this is a book selling some oppressive historical and present political sediments and situations affecting a sizable number of countries around the world. It should be used as a measure to challenge the current political giants’ oppressors and act as a mirror to caution them on credible leadership.
The amazing born by William Steig about Pearl who finds an unusual born which has supernatural powers gives me imaginary illusions of the peculiar powers embedded on the nature and its elements, which makes me ponder on how this powers occur and where they originate from. Censoring and challenging these books takes an intellectual thought on the implications embedded on the kind of literature material presented to which ages of people and art which time, thus drawing the line which permits censoring. Public libraries and school decide which books to put in their lists and shelves depending on the syllabus, current as well as important issues to inform the readers. Therefore censoring is necessary based on the reasons discussed previously as fundamental factors to be considered.
Reference:
A.L.A (2012): regularly challenged books of the 21st century Retrieved on July 20, 2012 from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/21stcenturychallenged
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