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Comment by Manuel_D | Hacker News Reader

Banning books from public school libraries has nearly zero effect on what students are exposed to. Did you ever check out a book from the school library? I never did, the actual municipal library had a much better selection. Harry Potter was banned from plenty of libraries for witchcraft, and it's sales demonstrate how futile it was.

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> Did you ever check out a book from the school library? I never did ...

That's fascinating to me. I checked out books all the time. In fact, we were required to check out books for various assignments. We also had a program called AR (accelerated reading) where you would be able to take a quiz on a library book and gather points which let you get various prizes, up to principal for the day.

I read dozens (possibly hundreds?) of books in my school library as a student. We're not just talking about "the library" either. We're talking about the books that are made available to students during classroom free time in elementary school.

> Did you ever check out a book from the school library?

Constantly. It was the only library I could get to regularly and I had a voracious appetite for reading.

I probably checked out dozens. But the problem also extends to classrooms themselves where teachers have thrown out entire shelves of books.

> Did you ever check out a book from the school library?

Uh, yeah. All the time actually.

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