When I was 17, I cried while reading Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

We were reading it in my English class, and I was absolutely enthralled in the story.

What brought me to tears was the scene in which the woman chooses to burn with her books rather than have her books destroyed  by the firemen.

To me, this scene demonstrated the importance of literature, and the impact that books can have on us.

Montag, the book’s protagonist, later says to his wife, “There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there was something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”

This quote made me think about book bans today.

Though Farenheit 451 is a dystopian book, I noticed eerie similarities between book bans in general and the outlawing of reading in the novel.

“The American Library Association reported that more books were banned in 2023 in the U.S. than any other year on record.”

Every year, more and more books are challenged and banned worldwide, with the majority being about diverse and important topics.

This encouraged me to research book bannings, and what I learned surprised me greatly.

Discomfort and prejudice

This year, the American Library Association reported that more books were banned in 2023 in the U.S. than any other year on record, with a 65 per cent spike from 2022.

Many of these books were targeted because they dealt with topics relating to the LGBTQ community and race.

Just a few of the books targeted in the U.S. include George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue, a memoir about growing up Black and queer, and Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give, a book following a young Black girl who witnesses the murder of her best friend by police.

Even Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three, a children’s book about a penguin with two fathers, has been consistently challenged in the U.S. and Canada since its publication in 2005.

Frequently challenged books in Canada include titles such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel about women who must reproduce on demand and who attempt to gain their agency, and even R.L Stein’s Goosebumps series, which tells the stories of teens who find themselves in horror story situations.

What do all of these books have in common? Why are some people so determined to make them inaccessible?

“If we find ourselves feeling judgmental, we should take the time to ask why that is and educate ourselves on these topics.”

I believe that book banning and challenging comes from a place of discomfort and prejudice.

It is a way of silencing those who are sharing their stories, particularly those who have historically been silenced.

Many books challenged in the U.S. and Canada deal with topics that people may be unfamiliar with, like telling the stories of marginalized people, or dealing with topics that can be uncomfortable to some, like sex and different religious viewpoints.

Instead of trying to learn more about these ideas, the people trying to ban the books want to erase them.

However, we should be doing the opposite.

If we find ourselves feeling judgmental, we should take the time to ask why that is and educate ourselves on these topics.

Canadian author David A. Robertson told CBC News in 2024, “Book challenges frequently come from a place of fear, ignorance and misunderstanding… Those stories need to be in libraries.… It’s doing a lot of great work, and taking them out is undoing the work that we’ve done, the inroads that we’ve made.”

Learn from others’ experiences

If we continue to ban books because of the discomfort we feel surrounding their subject matter, we will be left with nothing.

It is important to read about topics that we are unfamiliar with, in order to increase our knowledge on the topics and to learn from the experiences of others.

Of course, people are going to have differing opinions on different books, but this does not mean that they should be made unavailable to everybody.

Reading diverse books, and reading in general, encourages empathy and helps us to learn new things, and builds an understanding in ourselves for things we might not initially understand.

Stories should be shared, not stifled.