Pardon My Outlook: As If Banning Books From Schools is Really Helping Anyone

The folks over at the American Library Association (A.L.A) released their top ten list of most frequently challenged and banned books.

For those of you asking yourselves, "What is the difference between challenged and banned?” you're in luck. Here is the answer, straight from the A.L.A:

A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.

Schools and libraries send these challenges to the A.L.A in an attempt to ban these disgusting, warped and malignant books from the hands of innocent school kids.

If schools and libraries are doing this in an attempt to ban these books, then check out this scenario.

So let's say you're a high school student who wants to read something other than Elie Wiesel's Night. A little bird tells you to get your hands on Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five.

"A great read and one of the best books ever written," The bird says, but not really.

You walk into your school library and ask the librarian, "Do you carry a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five? I would really like to read something else in English class instead of Night for the seventeenth time."

"How dare you bring that title up in my library, get out this instance!" The librarian says.

(True story, librarians always think the school library is their library. Try it sometime.)

With your tail tucked between your legs you walk out and wonder where else you can get a copy of the book that by now has raised your curiosity level at an all-time high. You're wondering why is this goddamned book banned from the school library, it must be filled with raping and pillaging of children and orgy scenes with humans and animals alike.

"Oh, wait!" you say, "If my school library doesn't have the book, I'll just go to the public library where they have every single book!"

Now, with a wide smile on your face, you head into your public library, log on to one of their computers and search for this bastard book that you think shares some relation with the Codex Gigas.

Your smile turns upside down when you see the words: not available.

You walk up to the lady behind the counter and, again, ask, "Do you carry a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five?"

The librarian covers her ears and says, "You demon child, get the hell out of my library!"

(We all pay taxes to keep a library open, but it doesn't mean it's ours. I can't go and set my bed in the fiction aisle and forward my mail there.)

Eventually, you're left with doodley-squat and give up on your conquest for a great book. (You can always buy, but seriously, would your average high school student nowadays spend money on a book. If so, good for you.)

Banning books from schools and libraries is not helping anyone, in fact, it makes students and potential readers alike to give up on reading altogether and go do less productive things.

With that being said, here are the ten books the A.L.A challenged last year:

1) ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r, by Lauren Myracle

2) The Color of Earth, by Kim Dong Hwa

3) The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins

4) My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler

5) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

6) Alice, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

7) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

8) What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones

9) Gossip Girl, by Cecily Von Ziegesar

10) To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

The reason why most of these books were challenged was because of: offensive language, sexually explicit content, religious viewpoints and racism.

Aren't these things an average high school student or person goes through, sees or discusses on a daily basis, if not worst? Also, does anyone bother remembering that these are works of FICTION, that's right, it's not real, it comes from the authors imagination.

And I bet Snooki and Justin Bieber books get a prime position at libraries though.

In the end, playing it too safe always results in disaster. The more you prohibit something from someone, the more they'll do it. It's just how we humans are wired.

Playing it too safe doesn't result in disaster, you say? Allow me to retort.