sjsprWriting

What is it that all books have in common? Whether they are banned or not? They all have valuable knowledge and/or a moral lesson that makes them worth reading! Books that end up banned because of certain mature themes are not just for exposing them to these themes. There is valuable knowledge in every book. “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them”. A common banned book misjudged by the violence contained is “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton. While it does contain gang violence, it is actually a very heart-warming book that is assigned to at least a sixth grader in schools. Some of its themes include bridging the gap between the rich and the poor and honor among the lawless. So does this sound like a good for nothing novel now? Hopefully, not. This book was also banned for the intentional grammatical errors that Ponyboy uses as he writes what is occurring, just like the book “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger. Now, newer 19th to 20th century books compared to classics are much more banned; teachers prefer classics for their writing style that helps students analyze more. But the truth is, as time passes by, so does literary style. In the future, books that were written in this century could be considered classics for its writing style. You never know. It is prejudice that a book can be banned solely for its writing style. You always need to take into account the moral value. In Harry Potter, for example, witches and wizards do incredible things that people in the real world can only dream of doing.

By reading, we learn that in our world, a book can be a magic wand that lets us control our imaginations and do great things with the ideas and spurred by it.