Importance Of Books On Teenagers

As we all know, books play an important role in the process of human development. Especially, books would influence teenagers’ way of thinking or action in a deep and long way. As a result, in the United States, a lot of schools have banned books from their libraries, book stores, and curriculum since they believe that those books target violence, racism, or sexuality content, which are not appropriate to teenagers. According to Modern Library Association, books which are successfully challenged or target racism would be banned, such as Hamlet, The Communist, Manifesto, Lady’ Chatterley’s Lover, and Moll Flanders, which were banned in the past (Strong). However, book censorship inhibits teenagers from gaining more information which could open their minds and challenge the tradition. From my perspective, books should not be banned for teenagers.

As a record of human civilization, books should tell teenagers the reality, which means what truly happened in our society. Teenagers study in school to learn some skills and abilities for their career and social life. Obviously, they already pass the age of reading fairy tales and day dreaming. Unfortunately, racism, violence, and sexuality happen in real life and society, and teenagers would learn them eventually from other ways such as internet, friends, or relatives. It would be better if those banned books could teach them a little about real life before they actually touch racism, violence, and sexuality. Furthermore, the damage we image to our children is not as much as that we believe. For example, Kurt Vonnegut is one of America’s best-loved novelists, but his novel Slaughterhouse-Five was banned and even burned by a school in Drake, because its characters speak coarsely (Vonnegut...

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...ut show no respect.

Furthermore, some books have been banned only because a word or one sentence. People can’t say this word is racism, because racism is a point of view. For example, the novelist Kurt Vonnegut, his characters speak coarsely do not mean that he is a bad person who speak coarsely everywhere (Vonnegut). We should concern about the meaning of the content and what the author want to tell us and teach us, not the words they have used.

In conclusion, books should not be banned from teenagers. Teenagers have the right to know the reality just as adults, and this is not much harmful as we think, sometimes even helpful. What’s more important for educators and parents is to teach teenagers how to learn in the right way and understand those books correctly. As an old saying in China, It is always a better way to face the problem instead of avoiding them.