The Forbidden Pages

Why Banning Books Only Makes Them More Alluring

By: Peyton Phan

Every day, more books are being banned across public schools in the United States. Topics are being censored, information is stripped from children, and certain people are targeted! All because the content within a book’s pages is considered inappropriate for the young mind.

In 2022, 1,600 new books were added to the ever-growing list of banned titles across the country. These bans affected around 138 school districts across 32 states. Sadly, the number of banned titles continues to increase daily. Currently, Texas and Florida have the lead on the most banned books. In Duval County, Florida, 176 books were removed from libraries. Texas has 801 banned titles in 22 school districts and 174 titles have been banned twice from July 2021 through June 2022.

Recently, numerous state and government officials have been taking action in advocating for certain genres and titles to be removed from the shelves of school libraries. In Texas, former Republican legislator Matt Krause sent a list of approximately

850 books that mentioned race and sexuality to the state to be reviewed for removal from school libraries.

“I do not think that the government should have any say in book banning or what books are allowed because they don't know, because they're not in a library. They don't know, they don't have that knowledge of books like a professional does,” said Courtney Ewing.

Ewing is the librarian at Casis Elementary School in Austin, Texas. She taught second grade for eleven years before becoming the librarian. This is her fifth year of being a librarian. She has strong feelings about how books are being used within school libraries.

When thinking about banned books many peoples’ thoughts tend to skew towards the lawmakers involved in making these decisions and the communities that are affected by these decisions. However, the perspective of the authors of these banned books is not widely broadcasted nor shared. The importance of how authors are perceiving the news of their work being silenced is critical in fully understanding how much of an impact banning books has on our society.

Dashka Slater voiced, “[When my book got banned] I was disappointed and sad and frustrated and wished I could talk to the people who were making these kinds of allegations about my book and explain to them how wrong they were. Even though people often say to you oh that’s great, you got a book banned, that's a badge of honor. It does not feel like that at all when it happens.”

Slater is a former reporter for the New York Times Magazine. She is the author of The 57 Bus, which won the Stonewall Book Award and was a YALSA nonfiction finalist. Some of her other works of fiction include The Book of Fatal Errors and Escargot. The 57 Bus is banned in a number of states and schools across the United States. “I think that lawmakers are the last people who should be making decisions about what people read,” Slater proclaimed. “I do think that there are extremely well-qualified people who decide what are good books to put in a library and they are called librarians.” looked down upon due to their race, ethnicity, or sexuality being written within the pages of a book. Lawmakers and non-profit organizations who are advocating for the removal of these books are often seen as cruel and harsh for discriminating against people who do not look or think like them.

“[Banning books] is a way of communicating a message that some people are not worthy, not important to demonize queer people and people of color,” shared Slater. “That is very, very dangerous because we know from history, that banning books is usually only the first step and what comes afterward is horrifying. Nazis banned books then Nazis moved to eradicate people from the face of the Earth.”

Recently, there have been many alarming spikes in the types and genres of books that are being banned. Currently, in the United

States, the majority of books that are being removed from classroom and library shelves contain LGBTQIA+ and African American characters.

Slater stated, “40 percent of the books that are being banned are about LGBTQIA+ people or issues. 40 percent of the books that are being banned feature a primary or secondary character of color. It is no accident at all what books are being targeted and it is absolutely a trend.”

“Two of the biggest, are any books that have anything to do with the LGBTQIA plus community,” said Ewing. “The second biggest, I guess, are adult situations you could say. Things that, like adults might do that kids wouldn’t, so that could be, drug or alcohol use or physical contact.”

This is concerning because as books containing these topics are being selectively banned from shelves, this is teaching young children that what is written in these books is wrong. Therefore, as they continue to grow up, they will not be able to think about these topics without a biased opinion.

As lawmakers target and advocate removing these topics from schools, many students are frustrated with how the government is choosing to erase these topics from classrooms. Parents are also becoming upset with how their children’s education is being handled. “Young people are absolutely capable, even if they ban every book in the library, information about all of these topics. It’s really available through the magic of the internet,” Slater commented.

The creation of the internet has allowed for many books to become available digitally. Even as lawmakers vote to remove physical books from shelves and classrooms, this does not guarantee the halt of students accessing and educating themselves on these deemed “inappropriate topics.”

Ewing shared, “There is so much that’s talked about just between their children due to the amount of inappropriate information they contain. actually keep kids safe. Instead, it will encourage students to find ways to learn about these topics. Many lawmakers have not thought about how their actions are not changing how the kids talk amongst themselves either.

“Not exposing children to mature, pornographic topics at an age where they are too young to be exposed to them will continue to keep everyone safe. I also think that parents should be the ones talking to their kids about these types of topics instead of them being out and available to kids who may not yet be exposed to them yet,” stated Stubbe.

Therefore, banning books is not a viable solution to prevent kids from learning, talking, or engaging in the “inappropriate” topics that are mentioned in books. Books are a way for children to learn and explore new worlds. This opportunity should not be stripped from them, no matter what topics they may contain within their pages. you and your friends more than anything that I would ever say. I feel like you guys are having conversations that aren’t in elementary books. You know, you’re having more grownup conversations then maybe you should be having, but that’s already happening even before you’re opening up a book.”

Catalina Stubbe is a member of the Moms for Liberty Group. This group is a conservative 501 nonprofit organization based out of Melbourne, Florida. They advocate for parental rights within schools. Stubble feels as though banning books from schools helps keep children safe from topics that they may not be ready to be exposed to at their age.

“I think that it is important that we are protecting our children to make sure that there are no books with pornographic images and other mature topics on the shelves in the classrooms where our children learn,” said Stubbe. With these specific genres of books being purposely removed from schools, some parents are satisfied to know that these types of books are not going to be available to

Even after removing and making these types of books unavailable for students to read, it might not

From the young and eager to learn to the old and wise, banning books has had significant effects on people of all age groups. All of them are left to wonder why has society chosen to take this approach. A staggered amount of protests have taken place across the United States. These protests are often targeting them and are trying to raise awareness among others so that they will understand how unfair banning books is. In the photo above, a crowd is gathered at a protest outside of the United States Secretary of Education office.