Books and Magazines

As I look on the list of banned books I do see a couple that I have read in school. My freshman year of high school we read To Kill and Mocking Bird in my honors English class. There is obviously some language in it but our teacher did a good job of prepping us on it and as freshmen, we knew about it. I also read Sherman Alexie's book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I also had read this my freshman year I believe. To Kill a Mocking bird is just a classic book that so many people reference because most have grown up reading it in school. I thought it was a good book, and after reading it we compared it with the original movie which was pretty neat. Sherman Alexie's book was a very interesting read because it was about his time when he was a kid around the age of when I read it so we connected with the book and understood some of the things that he would talk about.

I do not believe we should be banning books from public schools. Real raw literature from different times should be read and studied. Yes, of course thing are different in today's society, but we all know that and know that it is an older writing. Newer books are normally something for diversifying our minds so that is also not a bad thing. I will agree that some books should be read later on in youths schooling due to language and references, but come on, by high school kids know a lot and the older/parents aren't protecting the kids from anything.

On my shelf I have a range of genres but I mainly like war books, either fiction or non, and I like poetry. I enjoy reading out of  "The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart" a poetry anthology and one of my favorite war books is "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'brien. The first is a combination of poems from different authors and the ladder is a book about the Vietnam war and what this gentleman went through.

For magazines I cannot say I have read three in the past year. I am not too interested in magazines. I have only been subscribed to two: Air and Space, ESPN. I love airplanes and sky technology and sports so both of those fit pretty well. I mainly got Air and Space because my uncle got it for me for my birthday and the other was just and impulse. I liked getting to know about athletes and things behind the scene in sports and that's what ESPN magazine gave me. Getting to see pictures of things was a big plus, like locker rooms and training spaces.

The ads definitely are based on the consumer of the magazine. In Air and Space there are lots of watch advertisements and glasses, while in ESPN there are more everyday things like Gatorade and clothing. Advertisers target who they thing is getting the magazine so people who have more money or planes are most likely getting Air and Space so they market more expensive items and people who get ESPN are probably everyday Joe's so that is why everyday, lower cost items are marketed there,