“Having books with adult topics available in libraries limits parents’ ability to choose when their children are mature enough to read specific material. “Literary works containing explicit sex, oral sex, explicit & violent descriptions of rape, masturbation, vulgar and obscene language” were on the approved reading list for grades 7-12, according to Speak up for Standards, a group seeking age-appropriate reading materials for students in Dallas, Texas. 

If books with inappropriate material are available in libraries, children or teens can be exposed to books their parents wouldn’t approve of before the parents even find out what their children are reading. 

Bans are necessary because “opting your child out of reading [a certain] book doesn’t protect him or her. They are still surrounded by the other students who are going to be saturated with this book,” said writer Macey France. “

I can understand that parents would not want their children to be exposed to literature with sexually explicit scenes, gore, or ideas that they may not agree with. However, if a parent wants to limit the information that their child has access to then they might as well ban them from using a phone, or the internet. The accessibility to anything in the world is in the palm of almost every child in grades 7-12, even though we try to think that they wouldn’t see some of the inappropriate things online. The internet is a great tool that is useful for learning, but it also has many dark sides to it including pornography, violence, random chat rooms, illegal websites, access to buy illegal goods, and much more. I am one who uses the internet regularly as do most people I would assume but there is a dark side to it, and in many cases including my own I wasn’t taught how to stay away from these types of things.

To ban novels that have similar experiences that can be found online would be a tragedy. The best place for a child to learn about these unfavorable subjects are under the supervision of an adult that has their best interest in mind. Some parents may be unwilling to have these kinds of talks with their kids, the sex talk for example can be a weird thing to talk about with a child, a parent doesn’t want to think about their child having sex, they want to preserve that innocence that they have. Parents have the best interest at heart for their children at all times, but sometimes the lack of information could be vital in their kids emotional, physical and mental growth. Allowing these novels that have moments that revolve around sexuality, sex, gore, violence and whatever else could allow teachers, trusted adults, to show young students what they mean, its place in society, why people do it, and how to teach the best way to approach them. Would you rather your child go into the world blind and not know how to do something, learn possibly harmful ideas from the internet, or learn valuable and beneficial skills from that of a teacher? Learning how to practice safe sex, consent, what sex is, and what/how people do it is something that is part of every middle school and high school curriculum. Although sometimes lacking, sex education is part of what children learn in school because it better prepares them for the real world the about to enter, without the shelter of mom, dad or school to ease them along. After high school, students are thrown right into the real world and have to figure it out for themselves, hopefully some of the knowledge that teachers have passed on to them could help in the future life; like how learning how to write makes you a competent person, learning what sex is, and how to do it safely makes you a competent person.