Break The Tape Week, the student-led protest against book restrictions, took place on Sept. 22-28. The protest was started by the group Students Against Book Restrictions (SABR). Word spread among the Nixa High School student body, creating different opinions. 

   “It’s [book restrictions] just adults trying to protect children from … stuff they shouldn’t read,” Freshman Katherine Bryant said. 

   Bryant has the same opinion as other adults in the Nixa community, but not everyone feels that way. The book restrictions have been happening in Nixa since they first started to crack down on the books aloud in school about three years ago. 

   Break The Tape Week was one of SABR’s many strategies to spread the word. The idea of Break The Tape Week came from the Golden State Readers, a similar group to SABR in California. The idea is that the caution tape on the backpack represents that there are banned items in backpacks that the school doesn’t want, so they want to break the tape on the restricted books. By the end of the week, a part of the student body had caution tape on their backpacks supporting the protest.

   “I think the idea of book restriction is a [good] idea, but the way it was implemented is wrong,” Member of SABR and Freshman Bennett Lyons said. “We shouldn’t be banning educational books from high school students.” 

   Lyons said that the goal of SABR is to spread information about the book restriction and protest so that as many people are as informed as possible.

   Although people are against the protest, SABR keeps on going.

    “[We’re] fighting for freedom of speech and literature in Nixa,” Lyons said. 

   Some see the book restriction going too far. 

   “If this [book restrictions] gets passed, some people could take it too far… you can’t have the Bible at school [libraries] because it ‘forces’ religion,” Bryant said. 

   ”The book ban is one hundred percent positive.” Bryant said still standing by her original statement.