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Most of the time, a school bans a book because they have heard that it uses racist words or has inappropriate themes, but these are some of the very stories that have shaped literature today.1 I think that the criteria for banning books should be lifted completely or at least slightly altered. After parent complaints about the use of racist epithets in To Kill a Mockingbirds Adventures of Huckleberry Finns The Cays Of Mice and Mens and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, the Burbank (CA) Unified School District superintendent issued a statement removing the books from the district s required reading lists for its English curriculum and banned the use of the N-word in all school classes. 3 Ron Titus, "Banned Books 2022- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" Marshall Libraries, https://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/ 4 Richard Luscombe, "Major Publishers Sue Florida over 'Unconstitutional' School Book Ban," The Guardian, 30 August 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ article/2024/aug/30/florida-school-book-ban-publishers-lawsuit