Just realized my hometown library banned a book I read in school

I was talking to my mom on the phone last week and she mentioned the local library in our small Michigan town pulled “The Hate U Give” from the shelves. I read that book in 10th grade for a class project and it honestly helped me understand a lot about police shootings and protest movements. My teacher even brought in a speaker from Detroit to talk about her experience with activism. Now the library board says it’s too political for kids and they don’t want it in the teen section. I guess I never thought about how a book I just read for school could get flagged like that in another part of my own state. Has anyone else had a book they used in class get banned somewhere else?

3 comments

3 Comments

blake3022mo ago

It's like they're scared of kids learning to think for themselves (weird, right?).

ramirez.sage2mo ago

Started telling my sister about it and she brought up @blake302's point about thinking for themselves.

-1

elliotr391mo ago

Ask your sister if she actually sees her own original thoughts in that point, or if she is just repeating @blake302's framing back to him. It is one thing to agree with someone, but it is another thing to let their words become a shortcut for your own thinking. Genuine independence usually comes from sitting with an idea alone, not from picking up a ready made critique from a comment section.