Banning books, simply put, is bad

No one should be able to dictate what another person thinks or feels. That extends to what a person reads, as well. 

That’s why Banned Book Week is so important today — it gives society a chance to pause for a moment and think about all of the books that have been banned over time — and books that continue to be forbidden by certain organizations, namely schools or school libraries.

Books represent freedom. They give people the chance to express themselves, to share their thoughts, to encourage free thinking. They offer opportunities to explore the world, as well as one’s own imagination.

They share information — sometimes hard to come by — and new ideas and concepts. 

They express and they inspire.

It’s a very dangerous thing when someone tells another what’s OK to read and what’s not OK. That gives that person, or entity, an enormous amount of power.

Think about all of the book burnings throughout history — books singled out because they challenged the status quo, because they shared new insights, because they offered different opinions. 

Sometimes, it’s been more benign. Sometimes, books were banned for the silliest of reasons — like when “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” was banned because its author, Bill Martin Jr., shared a name with another author, Bill Martin. 

Martin Jr. is a beloved author and illustrator of roughly 300 children’s books. 

Martin, meanwhile, is a professor who has written about slightly more controversial topics, like Marxism. 

The confusion between their two names is the perfect example of why banning books is subjective at best.

Though accidental, it illustrates that what is offensive to one is not offensive to another. And offensive or not, it all has the right to be written — and read.

Books are subjective. Some may love a book while others fear it. Some may consider a book harmless while others perceive it as dangerous.

Most books, though, are not dangerous. They are often creative and compelling, poetic and sometimes prophetic.

What is dangerous, however, is telling people they are forbidden from reading — anything. It should be up to the individual to decide what to read, and what to do with the information learned through reading. 

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are compromised when we ban books. The First Amendment is badly damaged by such censorship.

Now, parental supervision is something different. Parents and guardians have the absolute right to determine what is appropriate reading for their children. But once a child reaches adulthood, all books should be made available.

And that’s with the understanding that not all books are positive. Some books contain dangerous information; how to design explosives is an extreme example. That, certainly, is not information we want to spread. But the Constitution protects the rights of such books and their authors. 

Some responsibility must also be given to the reader to read responsibly and to not do harm with the information learned. That might be a little rosy-eyed. After all, there are bad people out there. But we can’t stop them. And forbidding books, selected by any single person or agency, is certainly not the answer.

An election-time thought: It’s anti-American to ban books — and we hope one day that will cease to happen in this country and abroad. Books are a fount of information — some good, some bad — but always, always, worthy of protection.