I’m an author myself. I frequently write all the time and most of my free time is spent dedicated to writing in my series, The Fallen Age Saga. In it, I tackle a lot of philosophical and moral questions like mental health, war, biological warfare, cyberterrorism, and so much more. In fact, I wanted to deliver an impact with the idea of mental health and chose to cast the main character of my series as an individual who has psychopathy, as I believe there is not enough knowledge on such individuals in the world today.
I was fortunate to grow up with a mother that understood that my reading level was well above my peers at school. I wasn’t able to read books my age without flying through them too quickly. It became boring to me. I thought that the Percy Jackson books were too easy for me when I was in fourth grade. I just couldn’t read what my friends did. So, as I grew up, I would read books well above my grade and I was mature enough to understand them.
When I was young, I found out that the Harry Potter books had been banned from schools before over “witchcraft” fears or something of that nature. I remember child-me scoffing at the idea of banning Harry Potter of all books. There I was, writing stories about SciFi and war and history as a child, finding the art of reality to be a fascinating angle to tackle. And yet, people were caught up on if a fantasy book would encourage children to go off and learn the Satanic dark arts or something ridiculous like that.
I don’t think society should be hiding children from the harsh realities of the world. This is something many parents don’t seem to understand. You shield your child only to wonder why they’re shocked when they grow up and realize the world isn’t all sparkles and rainbows. It’s ridiculous.
Why I bring this topic up? A school board in Tennessee chose to ban the book Maus, which depicts a rendition of the Holocaust–a horrific genocide in world history that resulted in millions dead–from their schools. Apparently, foul language is just so terrible for children who spend their entire days on iPads and TikTok these days that banning intellectual and educational property is acceptable. Yes, because TikTok isn’t teaching children about adult things at all. That could only come from a book.
I sometimes laugh at these kinds of situations. Imagine, the books written by SciFi authors like George Orwell and Ray Bradbury are literally not too far off from reality. Target education and intelligence, you have an ignorant population who will accept the next time a tragedy like this happens.
And it is happening. In Rwanda, it happened. In Myanmar, it’s happening. In Bosnia, it happened. In China, it’s basically happening. It’s ridiculous, because this is exactly why books like this are written. Because if we are ignorant and shielded from evil, we will succumb to its pull ourselves.
When I write, I acknowledge that there will be people out there who find my book damning and terrifying. I acknowledge that people will find a book about mental health, philosophy, gray morality, and ethics to be terrible. My book doesn’t shy away from showing the evil of humanity because this is what is true and real out there. Yet, some people find that hiding this truth is the best way to raise their children. This is why we have an issue with education in America: We are a nation supplied by ignorance and isolation.
There is a world outside of our small bubbles. There are conflicts, genocides, wars, and evil acts occurring outside of our borders. And there are evils occurring within our borders. When we ban children from understanding a vanilla version of this, we are essentially raising more ignorants that will fuel more ignorants. And the damning cycle continues.
Banning books does not erase history. It does not erase the reality. You are hiding it behind fragile curtains. It’s not even just about Maus at this point: It’s about the principle of banning books because of their content.
It’s not even just books. Video games are also a victim of this hypersensitivity. One of my favorite video games of all time, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, also happens to be one of the most controversial in the entire franchise’s history. In MWII, there is an infamous mission known as “No Russian.” To sum it up, the main villain of the series commits a terrorist attack on a Russian airport and plants evidence to frame the American government. This in turn, pressures the Russian government to invade the United States. And the rest of the game goes from there.
Now, you play as the American CIA agent planted in the villain’s circle and you aid in the attack. This somehow caused parents across America to spontaneously lose their minds because somehow, violence in an animated video game equals violence in real life. Now, if you boot the game up, it asks you if you want to skip it as a mission.
Well, the concerns were that American kids would start shooting up places because they played a video game. They don’t need video games to have this happen, but in any case, I find this argument utterly ridiculous. Censoring the harsh realities of the world from a video game about–get this–war, makes no sense. The entire game, you’re killing and killing and killing. However, when it comes to “No Russian,” all of a sudden, this is what will cause American kids to start committing terrorist attacks.
I’d like to state that if you fear that your child will commit a mass shooting because of a video game, then I think there are bigger problems with your child than you choose to see.
You see what I’m getting at? It’s a lack of parental responsibility. Parents don’t want to be held accountable for their mistakes at being parents because they’ll damage their poor, precious egos. You’re a human, admit that you screwed up instead of pointing fingers at video games and books. Besides, Call of Duty is a 17+ video game; if you’re so bothered by it, why did you buy a child a game for adults? Seems like a lack of your ability to parent. My mom literally knows every video game I play and she knew what she was buying me. She didn’t care about that because we understand each other and she trusts me and I her. Maybe you need to cultivate a good relationship with your kid instead of toss them an iPad and hope they love you in the future.
Maus will not cause your kid to go insane and start swearing like a sailor: Their iPads will though. Yes, the very iPad that you use to screw your kid off of your case is the thing that’s destroying them. I promise you, reading a book about reality is not going to turn them into a narcissistic idiot. I promise you, a mission from a video game will not cause them to snap and kill people. If they have the potential for something like that, you have much BIGGER problems than a book and video game.
When I was a bit young, I read a first-hand account of the Bosnian genocide. It was written in the format of a graphic novel, which interested me. It was a very long book, but I read it cover-to-cover, word-for-word. I was invested. It was gory, yes. It was violent, yes. It was highly disturbing, yes. But you know what I did? I finished it. I finished it because I wanted to understand the event. I wanted to see what humans were capable of and understand why they do what they do. I promise you, it didn’t mentally torment me nor did it give me trauma or anything. In fact, it inspired me to research and understand history more than ever.
My favorite subject in school is history because it’s fascinating to understand human behavior and nation-wide politics and all that. My family consistently references me for history help because I obsessively read about it. I know more facts about the French Revolution than most people should. I completely shut people down before over historical misinformation with counter-evidence. History and my reading of it as a child only increased my well of knowledge. It didn’t ruin my existence.
To this day, I still have my little historical fiction books I used to write when I was in fourth or fifth grade, I can’t recall the exact age. I wrote about the Aztecs, the founding of the Americas, and Ancient Egypt and much, much, more. I’m sure many got lost along the years. I was fascinated by the worlds and civilizations before my own. Learning about the darker parts of history allowed me to understand patterns we see today.
Censoring books and media from our children in all aspects will not aid them as they grow. They will be shielded, unaware, and ignorant of the universe’s realities. I do not believe that we should show everything and anything to children–there needs to be some filters–but we cannot ban everything we don’t like. We can’t just go around and ban things because we’re bothered by them. We can’t go around tossing responsibility for our own shortcomings onto movies and books and games because we can’t deal with the consequences of our actions.
I hope you understand where I’m coming from in my words: It is simply hypocrisy to ban kids from reading a book because of “foul language” and throw the internet at them from before they can even process words. I promise you, they will be exposed to everything inappropriate and wrong from the internet before a book at this rate.
Books are not evil. Let’s not turn our world into Fahrenheit 451 or 1984. Spoiler alert: Those books don’t have happy endings.
I’m a writer for The DZSH Group and have a passion for all things gaming. I’m also an author. Check out my newest SciFi/Dark Fantasy Novel here. You can find more of my content on my website.
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Zainah Yousef
Zainah Yousef is the author of The Fallen Age Saga and specializes in gaming, social media advice, and reviews. She's been writing all her life and she probably won't stop anytime soon.
