British writer, Melvin Burgess, was born in Twickenham, England on April 25, 1954. He currently lives in Hebden, West Yorkshire with no wife, and no kids. Burgess was not the smartest kid, nor made an effort to do well in school. He went to quite a few of schools that he did not admire, until he attended a school in Berkshire. He has gotten better since he went there, because of, “one or two teachers who helped [him] along, but [he] was still a poor worker” (About Me). Burgess received “two bad A levels in Biology and English” (About Me). After he was done with school, he didn't know what he wanted to do. According to MelvinBurgess.net Burgess mentions that, “My dad eventually filled in an application form for a job as journalist with [a] …show more content…
In addition to not finding any information, for whether people disagreed that Smack should have not been banned, there was also no information that stated Smack was for sure, not banned anymore. Reflection I found Smack to be a book that I really did enjoy. I was not really thrilled at first when I had to read a 300 page book, but after reading the first 20 pages, I couldn't wait to get to the end. I thought it was interesting for the author to write about young teenargers doing drugs. That would have definitely peaked my interest more as if adults were doing drugs. Although doing research for this book wasn't necessarily easy, i'm glad i got the opportunity to read it. I have found many themes that contributed to Smack being banned/ challenged. Themes that included prostitution, drug use, foul language and promoting a “damaging” lifestyle. No, I personally do not think that Smack shouldn’t have be banned. The content of this book isn't so horrible to the point where students can’t read them. If a student is interested in reading about young teens running away and doing drugs, then they should be able to. An adult shouldn't determine what is best for a young reader to
Teens should be able to read I hunt Killers because it teaches teens that even though someone disagrees with them and doesn’t want them to do something that they believe is right, to do it
One popular book that has been challenged for banning is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This novel is about a runaway boy and his slave on their quest to the North for freedom. They face many obstacles and even though they never make it to the North, Jim is set free anyway. Although some people think that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be banned in schools, it should not be banned because the novel is classic literature that people can easily get their hands on, it shows what life was like for African Americans while slavery was still permitted, and the book teaches valuable life lessons. There is no point in banning The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because it can be easily acquired by kids since it is a classic novel.
But in the 1980’s and 1990s Crack cocaine which is the smoke able version of cocaine had an epidemic. But particularly in Black and Hispanic communities. Which is why in most of Chappelle's drug skits he Chappelle plays the stereotypical African American crack head. But in the 80’s and a little left over in the 90’s crack cocaine had taken over inner cities and more impoverished areas. At the time the police had cracked down on crack and hit the inner cities with drug raids and constant searches in this time.
According to the American library association "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. " American library association. I would like to point out that if you read this book you will understand right away why this book is banned in schools and libraries and an author from comic book legal defense fund spoke with a superintendent at
Overall, Gore Vidal’s argument of legalizing drugs is very compelling. The style of writing is unique and keeps the reader interested. Vidal takes a popular argument (in 2016) and provides a sound argument in support of
However, in my opinion this book should not be banned. The biggest reason Of Mice and Men has been repeatedly banned and challenged is because of the impression that it’s promoting
Is it ever just to ban a book over the inclusion of controversial material? In Cold Blood written by Truman Capote has been an example of a book put under scrutiny for containing controversial content. Although the reasons for the opposition are clear to see in the novel, the complaints toward the book are not substantial enough to ban the book from schools. Capote includes some amounts gore and strong language in the novel, however nothing mature students are not able handle. The novel is based on a murder that occurred in 1959, and it has been speculated that Capote sympathizes with one of the two killers.
Just because a book that was written many decades ago may have bad words in it, doesn’t mean that it should be withheld from the students. Additionally, the educational value of, The Catcher in the Rye would be totally lost if a book is banned just for containing “explicit” language. Sophomore students are at the age where they are old enough to know what is appropriate and what isn’t and they can read a book that has bad words in it. If a book is banned because of its explicit content, that overshadows the educational content and the moral lessons that the reader would take away from reading this book.
I do not think this book was reasonably challenged because there are so many other books with more vulgar language and sexual scenes than this book. I think it was unfair to challenge this book. Also none of the sexual scenes or language is that excessive or graphic. I think it is okay for this book to remain in the high school library.
Back then when I was little, Aaron, as an adolescent, always acted with a professional manner, while his parents continuously bragged about his academic achievements. I always thought that it made sense for someone like him to be well rounded at such a young age, since I knew how over the top his parents can be about school. They were those types of parents with the “because I said so” attitude, enforcing their rules through yelling and physical punishment. You could imagine everybody’s surprise when we found out that he ended up piercing his ears and later on getting a tattoo without his parent’s permission. The once courteous young man became involved in many different rebellious activities until one day later on he ran out of money to continue to live in his apartment.
They can even be easily turned back on to hardcore drugs. Another reason this book should be banned is because this novel can easily influence kids to sell drugs when her life gets rough. Within the book Alice ends up struggling with money and she could not buy the "smack" she needed so she hooked up with a drug dealer. This allowed Alice to get a hold of marijuana and LSD so that she could sell to young kids when she states, "The high school kids are one thing or even the junior high, but today I sold ten stamps of LSD to a little kid in grade school who was not even nine years old, I'm sure"(pg.47). This is such a major issue.
A parent or the student should be the one who decided whether or not the book is appropriate. Also, when a child is sheltered from the world, a book with just a bit of adult material could help them understand what really happens. It could prepare them so when they do become older and get a job, the world doesn’t put them into complete shock. Taken from Common Reasons for Banning Books, “…it is important that the reader makes his/her judgments on the book.” To elaborate on this, another person shouldn’t tell a student what and what not to read.
They claim that the book has many redeeming qualities about it, and also is a great tool for teaching students reading and analytical skills. In my opinion, teachers should be permitted to teach these questionable book to their students. If an author's work was to be tampered with I feel as if many books will lose their value and or the meaning the author was trying to convey. Many of these “banned books” were written based on the time period it was wrote about. Banned books also can teach us history,social skills, vocabulary , and a new way of thinking.
A book should not get banned for covering topics like racial differences because it is essential to show experiences from the perspective of others. I was surprised when I learned that 338 banned book titles (21 percent of banned books in the USA) directly address issues of race and racism. I think that it is unrealistic to ban a book such as The Hate U Give for a reason such as trying to hide the past of America or not talking about racism because people don't want to make their kids uncomfortable. It's also not ethical to cover up the problems with race in the country. It's absurd for people to shield kids from reality.
Burgess is addressing the prevalent state of society as he sees the destructive behaviors around him: teen violence, authoritarian government, and corruption. Seeing this corruption around him, he believes that government should not have omnipotent authority over its people. Simply, each individual should be able to regulate their own growth. As they fall into states of aberration, it is their own job to find the path again. Being forced back onto another path is simply stopping their growth from becoming a mature adult, who is able to reasonably produce decisions on their own.