"'Banning books silences us when we need to talk. It closes our ears when we need to hear. It makes us blind when we need to see,'" Stephen Chbosky, author of The Benefits of Being Shy. Book bans happen all the time in thousands of different schools, in hundreds of different countries around the world. Take for example The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story has been called both "pornographic" and "obscene" (buzzfeed.com) although it contains no sexual interactions or sexual language. Second, the short story The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, was banned from schools because it was apparently "unacceptable, obscene, blasphemous, negative, disgusting, dirty and undermines morality" (bannedbookweeks.org), although it is one of the classic stories that make up American literature today. Finally, Homer's The Odyssey has been banned in schools across the country because it contains sexual scenes, even though it is a highly educational and classical story. Because of this information, it can be concluded that school districts should not have the right or power to ban and/or alter the original texts. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is the story of a young pregnant girl named Hester Prynne who is forced by a fellow citizen of her small Puritan town to wear the letter "A" for adultery on the breast of her dress. Considering that Prynne became pregnant out of wedlock, the story has been called both "pornographic" and "obscene" (buzzfeed.com) although there is no sexual interaction in the book. The story in no way encourages sexual interaction outside of marriage or any other obscene material, and is part of the history and future of American literature. If the classic were to be modified, it would be…half of the paper…an image educating students about Greek mythology and Greek history. The Scarlet Letter, The Catcher in the Rye and The Odyssey have all been banned for reasons such as religious bias, or too sexual to be read by students in class. Many other classic stories (like The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin, The Great Gatsby, and The Wrath) were banned for other absurd reasons similar to these. Banning the classics that make up American literature detracts from the education students access in the classroom and exposes students less to the diamonds and rough edges of today's world. The Scarlet Letter, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Odyssey are all classic stories that educate students about life and death and everything in between. Therefore, school districts should not have the power or right to ban and/or alter ANY original text.