Why should college students care about not banning books from schools?

In my opinion, books should never be banned. I’m 18, and I’m a reader. There is no arguable reason to remove a book from a library shelf. The world is huge, and diverse. Books, whether fiction or nonfiction, open a little part of that world to us. I don’t think I read more mature books because I was more mature…I think the books helped me to grow up, to learn about the world. No, Harry Potter isn’t the real world…but the characters, the three main characters, are believable. Remove Hogwarts, put them in New York, going to a public school, and that’s a plain and simple coming-of-age story. Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, The Color Purple, The War of the Worlds…they tell us about life when they were written, and they tell us about their author. The stories aren’t true, but the sentiments behind them are. But these lists of books people have tried to hide are true…I shudder to think what these will tell future generations about what life was like when they were created.

I’ve read books that had notes in the front about not being quite suitable for young readers, and I read books from the “high school” side of my school library when I was in elementary school. I’ve read books with violence and language and “obscenity”, however that’s defined at the moment. I loved the Harry Potter series, but I never tried waving a wand or chanting a spell to turn my brother into a toad. I’m not normal, but I’m kinda proud of that. And to date, I have never attacked anyone (physically or sexually), robbed a store, used the derogatory terms that are such a matter of contention in these books, turned away from my religion, or started irrationally censoring anything that I don’t agree with.

I’m doing pretty good, for an 18 year old in our world today. I can’t think of anything to blame it on, other than my fixation with fascinating stories.