Why The Banning Of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower Was Justified

Coming-of-age novels are a fixture in reading lists of high schools across America. One such novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, has caused controversy due to the sensitive topics it covers and the controversy has raged on for nearly over a decade.

Stephen Chbosky is an American novelist, best known by his novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The novel, which was his first novel, met immediate fame and skyrocketed to the top. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a coming-of-age novel written and is set in 1998 in the suburbs of Pennsylvania. The story follows Charlie, an introverted high school student, through his freshman year. Throughout the year, he deals with the likes of bullying, drugs, and friends. The book was published in early 1999 by Pocket Books and has had a long history of being banned in libraries throughout the nation.

Three years after its release, the novel was challenged in school libraries in Fairfax, Virginia. A group of parents, who had dubbed themselves ‘Parents Against Bad Books in Schools’, had challenged the book for its ‘profanity and descriptions of drug abuse, sexually explicit conduct and torture’. This was the start of a long line of challenges and bans of the book, the latest being in 2016. The most prominent reason the book was banned was due to its sexual content and mentions of illegal substances (such as drugs and alcohol), both of which have always been sensitive topics amongst the general population.

The controversy that surrounds The Perks of Being a Wallflower was justified during its time period. Although the latest banning took place in 2016, most of them were concentrated around the early 2000s, a time in which topics such as homosexuality and drug use were sensitive topics. Not only were they in the book, they were also a main plot point in the novel. In the early 2000s, children were often sheltered from topics such as sex and drugs. I believe that the recent bannings (most notably the ones from 2010 and onwards) were not justified. Over the last decade, the social climate has changed and topics that were once sensitive became a norm. Kids learned of drugs and sex at an earlier age and homosexuality was now somewhat of a norm.

In conclusion, the banning of The Perks of Being a Wallflower in the early 2000s was justified. The topics it covered were sensitive at the time and many parents didn’t want their children exposed to that, with good reason. But the more recent bannings of it are not justified, simply due to the fact that the social climate has changed and the topics the novel covered are more accepted now than back then. 

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