or she should.Another subject common to banned and censored books is sexuality. An excellent example of a book in question containing sexual content is The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier, which ranked number 5 on the ACLU's list. Now considering the fact that this frequently banned book is written for young adults of middle and high school age, I'm sure the author included this content, and the often graphic language associated with such content, because it made the book more realistic and possibly because it made the novel more appealing to the age bracket. Fiction is not the only genre faced with banning and censorship. Educational books such as the sex education text It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris and The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsmanare under attack because they discuss sex-related topics. All I have to say about this is sexuality is a fact of life, not some forbidden subject. Adolescents need to know this information so they don't go off an ruin their life by having a baby while they are in their teens or catching a disease because they didn't have the information to protect them. Sometimes books are banned or censored for unusual and often ridiculous reasons. An example of such is the banning of Little Red Riding Hood in two California school districts in 1989. In the story, Little Red Riding Hood is bringing a cake and a bottle of wine to her grandmother's house. The districts claimed they were concerned because of the use of alcohol in the story. Even the popular children's' book series Goosebumps, by R.L. Stine, has been challenged across the country by parents and school officials. They say that the book is "too scary for kids." I am curious as to why they say this, because I remember reading the books in elementary school, and to my peers and I, they were comedic rather than scary. By the time a child can read these books, I feel, they are old enough to know that it is just a story and t...
