Showerthought: Does banning books ever actually stop kids from reading them?

I was in my high school library in 2019 and saw a kid pull a banned book off the shelf, then the librarian made him put it back. That kid just found it online that night anyway. Is censorship irrelevant when everything's available on the internet, or does removing a book from a school still send a strong message that some ideas are off limits?

2 comments

2 Comments

matthewh283d ago

Honestly, is this even that big of a deal? Kids have been finding ways to read stuff they're not supposed to since forever. I remember sneaking a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" from my dad's bookshelf in middle school, he didn't even know it was banned. If a kid really wants to read something, a librarian saying no or a book being off a school shelf isn't gonna stop them. It's more about making a point to parents and teachers, not actually controlling what teenagers do.

miles2773d ago

Man, tell me about it. I was that kid in middle school who found my uncle's copy of "Fahrenheit 451" and thought I was some kind of rebel genius for reading it under my covers with a flashlight. Guess it just proves that banning stuff just makes it more interesting, like a weird sort of marketing for books.