Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Think way back to kindergarten when your teacher read Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? In Texas schools this book has been banned. You might be thinking right now something like "What was wrong with this book?" the anwser nothing at all. The reason this book was banned was because of the author. Bill Martin the author of Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? was confused with another author named Bill Martin who wrote Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation. Both share a common name but are not the same person. Since Ethical Marxism is about communism, that book was banned and "Brown Bear" was banned as well just because of the author has the same name.

Although banning books is censorship and goes against the constitution, when banning a book you need to double check your research. "Bill Martin is a philosophy professor at DePaul University who has written a book called Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation. Bill Martin Jr., who died in 2004, was a children’s author who wrote Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? The men are not related." If they are not related then the ban was pointless. "Last week, the two Martins were briefly fused into one persona by Pat Hardy, a member of the Texas State Board of Education, who moved that Bill Martin be removed from a suggested revision of the state’s third-grade social-studies curriculum." To combine the names is saying that both are the same person when clearly they are not. Banning books is a waste of time and to ban a childs book because of the author is also a problem. Even if a murderer wrote a childrens book we shouldnt ban the book because of the author, you shoudn't ban it at all. The author may have done something wrong in the murderer example but they book causes no harm and banning it violates their rights of freedom of speech and freedom of press. The book "Brown Bear" does not present any harm to people when it tells of how a bear is observing other things. Banning books is wrong and banning authors because of 1) Their past/history 2)religious/political belief 3) a confussion of names. Banning books based on the author is just a wrong thing to do.

Work cited & Quotes from:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/tweed/brown-bear-brown-bear-why-were-you-banned/20798