Censorship, and Why I Hate It.

Our school library removed all of the Stephen King books.
All of them.
They're censoring our library.

Apparently some parents complained of these books. I don't know a whole lot, just what my English teacher told us, but I'm glad that she did tell us.

I was really mad when I heard about this. We deserve to choose the books we read! If somebody's parents (or somebody) finds any book inappropriate, then they don't have to read them. But don't make everyone else suffer! Don't tell us what we can and can't read!

I told a friend about this censorship going on, and her response was, "I'm not surprised." Then changed the subject.
What?
Am I the only one who's infuriated by this? How can anybody be okay with this? When I told my father about what my English teacher told us, and he couldn't believe it. "But it's Stephen King... It's not like it's even Anne Rice or anything!" And every few minutes of silence (we were in the car) he would express his disbelief again...
I suppose that I could see their reasons if they removed Anne Rice's books, but I would NOT be okay with it.

It makes me think of an episode of Kino no Tabi-- my favourite, in fact. In short, Kino (the main character, a traveler) visited a country of books. She was told that she could trade in a book at their huge library for any book she wished! How wonderful! Yet, when she arrived there, the library was full of resource books: encyclopaedias, medical books, textbooks... When she asked the librarian where all the storybooks were, she was told that all books have to go through the "critics." Any book that they disapproved of never reached the public.

The censorship at my school is not nearly this bad-- but it has the same effects. We are not "allowed" certain books, because a group of people believe we should not read them.

And it pisses. Me. Off.

I feel like I should do something about this-- but what? I'm not really a take-charge person. A follower, not a leader, right? Writing this post has let out a little steam, but I'm not nearly satisfied. I don't want to be all talk, but I honestly have no idea what I should do. Maybe if I can get more people on my side, we can do something about this. Or not... Honestly, I have no idea. At all.

All I know is this: censorship is wrong.