13-year-old Caitrin reads banned books

In the January/February 2006 issue of New Moon, we asked girls to share their thoughts on censorship so we could post them during Banned Books Week. Below is 13-year-old Caitrin's response.

"I have read the Harry Potter Series, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Adventures of Hucklberry Finn which at some point in time have all had people try to ban them. I enjoyed all of them and thought they were perfectly appropriate for New Moon age group and up. The Harry Potter Series has such a wonderful, exciting storyline and allows the reader to use their imagination. Besides the book isn't saying, 'You must do witchcraft, this is how you do it.' It is clearly written as a fun fiction book.

I can see were the people could be coming from in a way about To Kill A Mockingbird, however I dont agree. I think it is a great book about a young girl growing up and finding out about how the world is or was in the time the story takes place. I think slavery is a horrible thing but that doesn't mean we should ban it being a part of any book because then we would blocking out a piece of our history. To lose history threatens not learning from our mistakes. To Kill a Mockingbird does not promote slavery or rape, the young girl's father is even the lawyer representing and defending the accused African-American man.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic book that I really enjoyed reading. Although some of the slang used in the book is not appropriate or nice to use in conversation it was the terminoligy of the time. It is an author's job to portraye and tell the story. Part of a story is setting and time period which includes ways of speech. So I believe to tell the story well the slang used was necessary and not meant to be offensive to anyone.

I really like the Harry Potter series, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I think many girls around my age would enjoy them."