Censorship

American Library Association: Banned and Challenged Books
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Political correctness is a monster. People feel that if a book has something they are uncomfortable with or don't like, then the book should be banned. Most books have deep messages that are ignored if the book is banned.

Most of the classics in the high school English curriculum have been banned. For example, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, A Separate Peace, and Things Fall Apart are some of the books I have read in my three years of high school English, all of which are on ALA's Banned and/or Challenged Classics list.

But what doesn't make sense to me is the fact that The Lord of the Rings, Charlotte's Web, The Wind in the Willows, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and even Winnie-The-Pooh are also on the list of banned classics. Why would a children's classic be banned? This just proves that society is causing people to lose their sense.

The ALA has a page on statistics: challenges by year, reason, initiator, and institution. The years in which the most challenges occurred are 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008. The most common reasons are sexual content, language, unsuited for an age group, occult, and violence. The most common (and pretty much only) initiator is parents. And finally, the most common institutions to challenge a book are schools, school libraries, and public libraries.

I'm beginning to think that political correctness played a major role in the banning of classic books.
--Amber