The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

"Over the summer I read this novel and I must say, it is one of the few books with lots of writing that I actually wanted to finish. Lots of controversy surrounds this novel due to the excessive use of the N-word. If a single book is going to be condemned because of a bad word, they may as well remove all books from the curriculum. The truth is, these books are historically accurate in the environment setup, and in order to show our history we must show the truth, and the truth is ugly."

-freshman Daniel Quang

"'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' should not be banned from schools. Efforts to ban then books are an insult to the intellect of students, who are expected to maintain their studies and function in a high-school environment, yet are not trusted to draw their own conclusions about a novel. While the school system may wish to 'protect' students from the ideas expressed in this book, this 'holier than thou' crusade will succeed only in accelerating the decay of what little free thought students have left. Why else are we here but to learn? How long is it until even the voice of Bradbury and his great work 'Fahrenheit 451' are silenced?"

-sophomore Christopher Ward

"Huck Finn should not be banned from public schools. Although there are a lot of offensive racial remarks in it, it's important to remember that Mark Twain was not racist and wrote the book as a satirical criticism of the racist mindset many 19th century Americans had. It is crucial that students have access to it as a historical document simply to prove how far we've come since then."

-sophomore Alexandra O'Hora

"I think that 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' should not be banned from public schools. There is no good reason. If the reason is bad language, our school would be void of virtually all books worth reading. If the reason is the reason that it was banned when first written, because of the freeing of slaves, that reason has been desolved for over a century. So, it should be perfectly fine to have this book in public schools."

-freshman David Jia