It's Banned Books Week!

This week (Sept. 24-Oct. 1, 2011) is Banned Books Week, an annual event “celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment,” and stressing “the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them” (American Library Association/ALA website). The ALA and others use this week to remind people of how many books are “challenged” every year by people who are trying to rid classrooms, school libraries, public libraries, and even college libraries of the books in question. The challenges are based on the books’ being, according to the challengers, too sexually explicit, or containing offensive language, or addressing homosexuality, or not being family-friendly, or expressing religious viewpoints the challengers (often parents) do not like. We need to thank the brave teachers and librarians who stand up against these types of attempted, and sometimes successful, censorship. These teachers and librarians sometimes risk their own jobs, reputations, and peace of mind. Just a few of the books that have been challenged in the past ten years, according to the ALA website, are the following:
-I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
-Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
-Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
-The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
-Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
-To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
-Beloved, by Toni Morrison
-Harry Potter, by J. K. Rowling
-Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger
-Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
-The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
-The Color Purple, by Alice Walker