Burning Books/Banning Books

Mrs. Melting Crayons:

wikipedia:

Book burning is the practice of ceremoniously destroying by fire one or more copies of a book or other written material. In modern times, other forms of media, such as phonograph records, video tapes, and CDs have also been ceremoniously burned, torched, or shredded. The practice, usually carried out in public, is generally motivated by moral, religious, or political objections to the material. Books can be also destroyed in secret, like millions of books in the former Soviet Eastern Bloc.

wikipedia:

Many societies have banned certain books.

Notably, children's books that deal with death or other teenage angst or various crimes often find themselves banned perhaps because of parental worries about teenage suicide or copycat crimes. Many publications are targeted on the premise that children would be corrupted by reading them.

What do you think about burning books? It it necessary? Censorship gone too far?

Almost every town in every country has some banned book, but fewer burn books. Personally, my city has banned some books such as Go Ask Alice, Fahrenheit 451, and A Clockwork Orange, to name a few.

I don't think it is necessary. To quote someone whose name escapes me, "To change people's minds, you don't have to burn books. Only get people to stop reading them."

In fact when I first saw the title of this form the first thing I thought was Fahrenheit 451. If you didn’t already know it's was written by Ray Bradbury and is about a time in the 'future' where books are in fact banned and fire fighters instead of putting out fires they burn the houses of people who have books.

I do believe that for certain age groups book banning should to be prohibited because it could give the younger citizens ideas or beliefs that their parents don’t want them thinking or potentially scaring them for life. For instance you wouldn't want a 10 year old reading a book about like gay sex or something by accident because of a misleading title.

But burning books in my opinion is absolutely obscurity. Why would you want to burn something that one person has worked so hard to publish and create?

Mrs. Melting Crayons:

Almost every town in every country has some banned book, but fewer burn books. Personally, my city has banned some books such as Go Ask Alice, Fahrenheit 451, and A Clockwork Orange, to name a few.

I think it odd that they ban a book about books never existing.
I do not understand why they would ban a book, no books are banned in either of the cities i live in (with my mom in one, and another with my father).

I don't believe banning books is right. That's ruining Freedom of Speech.
In my school, we actually have a section for books that other schools have banned. I don't think any town in Illinois has banned books, but I'm not sure. I know for sure, thought, that no suburbs of Chicago have. I've found Go Ask Alice and A Clockwork Orange in the public library. I've bought A Clockwork Orange.
We're about to read Fahrenheit 451 in my English class, too.

o m g just STFU!:

I do believe that for certain age groups book banning should to be prohibited because it could give the younger citizens ideas or beliefs that their parents don’t want them thinking or potentially scaring them for life. For instance you wouldn't want a 10 year old reading a book about like gay sex or something by accident because of a misleading title.

Don't let the child read the book then. It's the parents responsibility to raise the child and tell them what's right for their age and what isn't.
I remember reading The Shining when I was in fifth grade. That was very high reading for someone my age, and could easily give me ideas, but my parents taught me fact from fiction. Gay sex books or anything that isn't appropriate for young children shouldn't be in the kids' section, anyway. And that's where they should get their books from.

Banning books is just plain wrong.

I consider it a felony :P

My community has not personally banned any books. I remember vividly when the Harry Potter craze began that it was being banned from school libraries because it 'supported witchcraft' and it was 'a bad influence'. Then, the protesting parents go and buy there kid a Mario Nintendo game that promotes beating your opponent with a rubber malet. Violence is easier to immitate than witchcraft for a child.

I don't like the burnning of books. Books should be handled with care. We can learn from books. Books wit strong subjects allows the reader to get in to the mind of someone completely different than them. If the book 'influences them to do something criminal or wrong', than they couldn't have been that much of a human being to begin with. To allow fiction to create an idea in your mind is pretty intense.

I've been meaning to buy myself Go Ask Alice! Thanks for reminding me...

Well, I definitely don't agree with banning or burning books.

But I haven't ever heard of any books being banned or burned around where I live...though that doesn't necessarily mean they haven' t been.

Anyone know where/how I could find out about banned/burned books around me?

I don't agree with this either.

I haven't heard of them being burned around where I live either but I still think that it's wrong.

I do not agree with burning books for any reason. It's just disrespectful to the authors that put their time into writing up the story and going through the ordeal of publishing. As for banning books- what's the point? With e-books, online ordering and the like, people can still get their hands on them one way or another. And like it or not, children get introduced to sex somehow. Yeah, you could put rating stickers on books- but honestly, hardly anyone pays attention to ratings in this day and age. Kids as young as five watch M rated movies with their parents and of course, there's the huge influx of mature themes in mainstream music and public access television. Children all eventually learn about this stuff. It's just the way things are.

Exactly. No matter how hard parents try to prevent their kids from learning 'mature' things, they're going to learn them anyways. Whether it be from books, friends, school, anything.

The author cared about a subject enough to write a freakin' book about it. It just isn't fair to destroy their work like that.

I am thinking on making a huge bonfire this summer and burning all the books I really dislike. :cute:
I mean some books were just ... horrible. I'm a tiny person with huge opinions and I am going to have fun ripping Trainspotting into tiny little pieces and then burning it.
Ohh. I sound so destructive. Well I am not really, I just thought the book was horrible.

Of course I don't support the burning of books that are not your personal property.

I think I'd be sick if someone burned a book near me... it was someone's baby, someone spent time writing it. I get angry when the kids I work with bend books. The only time I ever hit my little sister was when she threw a book at me, and that was 'cos she threw a book, not 'cos she threw it at me!

I can't quite put into words how horrified I feel thinking of violence against art. I know its nerdy, and possibly rather strange, but it makes me very upset.

It's my book. I bought it, I actually paid the author money for it. I think it's horrible. I don't think that's art, and believe me I am interested in aesthetics. We live in a free world. I have the right to burn it. I've also thrown away books. But burning seems more fun. You are allowed to hate certain authors, or at least so I believe.
I have a really interesting way of criticizing art you see. :file:

I don't like either of them. Putting an age restriction on a books that's all about sex, drugs, and alchol is ok but completely banning it is just ridiculous because even though there's bad stuff it in people still learn lessons. And burning books that's wasting trees! If you don't like the books then don't buy them, just don't read them! I also hate the whole banning/burning of J. K. Rowling's books just because there's witchcraft in it. So what? I know some religions don't like them because of that but it's still not a reason to disrespect a great author's works.

I think that banning books can be one thing. But burning them? That's a disgrace to whomever wrote it. Because that person put time, effort, thought, and sweat into writing those books, only to have someone burn them. How would you like it if someone burned your writing?

I haven't heard of books being banned here, but I have heard of them being blacked out.
Whole pages blacked out, so the book is pointless.

I haven't heard of book burnings anywhere around here, but I definitely think banning books is wrong. You can't tell people what they can and can't read, even if you aren't the government. I think it's just a way to try to get everyone to conform to the way they think is the 'right' way to be.

I could never ever burn a single book. Not even the maths book from school XD.

Definitely not necessary. Awful in my opinion! I am very much against censorship of all kinds. Whether you're burning or banning a book, it's still wrong. It's a blatant show of ignorance. If a parent doesn't want their child reading a certain book, then they should prevent their child from reading that book, but that doesn't mean getting the local library to ban it from everyone.

ChemicallyImbalanced:

I don't agree with this either.

I haven't heard of them being burned around where I live either but I still think that it's wrong.

Same.