By In my quest to take a deep dive into newspapers with the Denton Writing Club. I decided to do a prompt on opinion pieces, also know as op-eds. The topics could be legitimate or made up. Plenty of people discussed made up issues but many members, including myself wrote about real issues, everything from the need for more walkable cities with better public transit to issues of higher-level faculty members at public school not taking threats seriously until someone is seriously injured or killed. This week’s writing was heavy at times.
If you are new here, a fact about me is that I love to read and I love to learn. This newspaper project is a perfect example of that. I feel this pieces that I wrote needs some research to strengthen it and it needs to be about 350 words longer. That being said, I am proud of this piece that I wrote in an hour.
If you are curious, I did do some general research for this topic. My favorite source that I found was this site from Duke. What do you guys think about op-eds in general and what do you think of this topic? I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments. Happy reading.
Just Say No to Book Bans
No book should be banned. Full stop. No book should be banned for any reason. Books are a form of art. Some may be dry and dull, some might be full of smut, some might address difficult topics – especially topics that make people uncomfortable. They need to be available.
We, as a culture, are banning too many books. If someone does not like a book, they have the option to not read it. They also have the option to not allow their children to read it. But one person or one community’s dislike of a book or bigger topic should not ban it.
Books are power, reading is power. To quote Doctor Who, “Books! The best weapons in the world.” How to fix book bans is the question. I don’t have a solid answer. Because some book bans are rooted in the need to take away people’s power. The answer is also the issue: education.
We need to educate parents on why diverse reading is important, even if they do choose to set limits. Because even I can agree that there are books out there that are not appropriate for a young audience but those books should still be available to the target audience. We also need to help foster a love of reading in children and young adults. If they love to read then as they get older discovery, conversation, and research will hopefully help lead them to things that are different, but not bad, when they are of the appropriate age. The best way to foster both of these might be to encourage parents to read to their children or, if they are older, to read with their children. This could be a time for parents and children to explore new and potentially difficult ideas together and prepare children better for if and when those children hear about these difficult topics out in the world.
Is this a perfect solution no. But it is a start, a place to begin. And even if children and young adults don’t learn the facts of the topics correctly, they hopefully will learn other things. Learning to read helps with so many things: learning to communicate, language development, learning context clues, helping with empathy, and understanding diverse groups among a number of others. Reading makes us better as individuals, it makes us better as a society. Reading helps us find wonder and hope in the dark.
Thank you KW Photography for allowing me to use your wonderful photos!
INSTAGRAM│TWITTER│YOUTUBE │PATREON
If you like the banner check out this design and others at Canva!
McGee Travel Tales 