Discussion 8: Contemporary Children's Literature

You've had a chance to look at the lecture on censorship. Some groups have problems with notions they have about fantasy ("Harry Potter will turn my child into a Satanist"); others have problems with realism ("Reading A Catcher in the Rye will turn my child into a degenerate").

Answer the questions below.

• What are some of the implications of censoring children's books? How dangerous is fantasy or excessive realism? How does this impact education, constitutional rights, personal freedom? Although parents have the right to make some choices for their children, just how qualified are all parents? Just because government agencies have the power to restrict information, how comforting is it when a group in power makes decisions for the governed?

  This certainly seems like an open-ended opinion question, but, as always, you need to show the reason for your conclusions. Don't simply state that violence in books such as Cirque du Freak will cause kids to have nightmares or will make kids callous. You need to back such statements up with real examples; outside research is a plus for this topic.

  Be careful to avoid logical fallacies. You might find evidence showing that children are exposed to a lot of violent television, for example; that does NOT mean there is a general causal link between television and gang activity. Other factors (poverty? education? peer pressure? lack of genuine models in homes and positions of authority--any number of possibilities or combinations of factors could account for that same gang activity.

  And invented examples (such as claiming that German techno-rock caused the kids in Littleton to shoot up their high school) need to be researched (since this once-popular scapegoat has since been dismissed by common sense and by the recognition that other elements clearly triggered these kids). Wanting to find a simple cause for complex problems does not mean there is a simple cause, and that's unfortunate because if we could show that GTA: LIBERTY CITY was the one cause of violent behavior in the world, it would be easy to eliminate violence in the world (it's not that easy).