Students Stand Up for Harry Potter

A group of students stood silent in the Galesburg High School learning resource center Tuesday morning, tape on their eyes and mouths. This, they did out of a protest against banned books in the US, all such as “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” “Beloved,” and “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” All of these widely-known books have either been challenged or banned in the United States, and the students came in a protest against the violation of the First Ammendment.
In celebration of Banned Books Week, Monday through Friday, GHS media specialist Becky Robinson constructed a banned books display in the LRC and invited civics, government and language arts classes to the library for some instruction on censorship. Some of the books students found in the display were surprising, including “The Giver” by Lois Lowry and “Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Paterson. Both were required reading in junior high English classes.

According to the American Library Association, more than a book a day faces expulsion from free and open public access in American schools and libraries every year. Since 1990, the ALA has compiled and published information on more than 8,700 attempts to ban books.

In 2007, the Office for Intellectual Freedom received 420 reports of people trying to remove books from school curricula or library shelves.

Books are frequently challenged for the material contained within their pages, including sexual content, vulgar language and violence.

According to the ALA, the most challenged book of 2007 was Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s “And Tango Makes Three,” a children’s book about two male penguins who care for an orphaned egg.

“We can control what we read, but should we control what others read? Who’s going to be the censor?” Robinson asked Lipe’s students. “That’s one of the things about censorship; it grows. They find one book and then it snowballs.”

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