Sponsored by: American
Booksellers Association
American Booksellers
Foundation for Free Expression
American Library
Association
Association of American
Publishers
Center for the Book in
the Library of Congress
Comic Book Legal Defense
Fund
National Association of
College Stores
National Coalition
Against Censorship
National Council of
Teachers of English
PEN American Center
Tomorrow begins the annual celebration of
the freedom to read. Banned Books Week
2011 (September 24-October 1) will be the thirtieth year that a focus on
books that have been banned or challenged has been observed. According to the
American Library Association (ALA), the goal of the observation is "to
teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature,
and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on
the availability of information in a free society." Each year there are
hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States.
According to ALA, at least 348 such challenges were reported in 2010, just a
fraction of the total challenges of which 70-80 percent goes unreported.
In his book Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee: How the American
Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other, Nat Hentoff writes
that “the lust to suppress can come from any direction.” Those who bring the
challenges come from all across the country and hold various political
viewpoints. Since they often claim to be motivated by a desire “to protect
children,” schools and school libraries are the most frequent targets, and sex,
profanity, and racism are the most frequent bases of objections. Challenges
significantly outnumber actual bans, but challenges may result in voluntary
censorship by school administrators or boards of education who are eager to
avoid controversy.
As a voracious reader and as one who has spent a lifetime in classrooms as student and teacher, I know that I am directly affected by attempts to censor books. So are you. None of us wants to see our freedom to read what we choose abridged. ALA reminds of ways that we can be actively involved in protecting the right to read within our communities.
1. Stay Informed
Battles are fought on the
local level. It is due to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and
members of the community that so few challenges result in bans, but knowing
what’s happening in your community is the necessary first step. Attend library
board meetings, school board meetings, and PTA meetings so that you are aware
of what’s going on locally. Support national
organizations that are dedicated to preserving the freedom to read. The Freedom to Read Foundation, for example, was
founded to protect the rights of people to freely express their ideas and to
read and listen to the ideas of others. The organization exists “to
promote and defend this right; to foster libraries as institutions wherein
every individual's First Amendment freedoms are fulfilled; and to support the
right of libraries to include in their collections and make available any work
which they may legally acquire.
2. Challenge Censorship.
When challenges occur in
your community or when state or national legislation that would limit reading
freedom is being proposed, write your representatives or other public officials
to express your opposition, write a letter to the editor of your local
newspaper that lets your community know that the challengers are not speaking
for you, and report censorship to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.
3. Support Banned Books Week
This year the sponsors of
Banned Books Week are offering everyone the opportunity to participate in a
virtual read-out by creating a video of themselves reading from their favorite
banned or challenged books. More information is available here. You can also
follow Banned Books Week on Facebook, watch Banned Books Week videos on YouTube, and follow the hashtag #bannedbooksweek on Twitter. You can participate in special activities
planned for this week by schools, colleges and universities, and libraries near
you. You can make sure you get caught reading in the week ahead and let those
around you know that you are reading a banned or challenged book.
Between May 2010 and May 2011, nearly fifty
books were challenged,
restricted, removed, or banned in (as reported in the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom). These books include modern
literary classics, recent fiction bestsellers, YA books, nonfiction, even a
children’s book. My personal celebration is to read (or rather reread in all cases
but one) a banned or challenged book each day of the eight-day celebration.
These are the books I’ve chosen:
1.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian
(2009) by Sherman Alexie
YA novel, NYT
bestseller, 2007 National Book Award Winner, banned because of violence,
language, and sexual content
2.
Speak (1999) by Laurie Halse Anderson
YA novel, NYT
bestseller, Printz Honor Book for literary excellence in YA literature in 2000,
center of major controversy in 2010, challenged as “soft pornography” that “glorifies
drinking, cursing, premarital sex.”
3.
Forever in Blue, the Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood
(2008) by Ann Brashares
YA novel, final
book in a popular series about four friends, takes place summer after their freshman
year at college, challenged because some of the characters are sexually active and drink alcohol.
4.
The Awakening (1899) by Kate Chopin
Novel, originally
charged with being anti-religious and immoral by 19th-century
critics, reclaimed in 1969 and recognized as important feminist work, accepted
as canonical work of American literature, challenged because cover showed
bare-breasted woman.
5.
Water for Elephants (2006) by Sara
Gruen
Novel, NYT
bestseller about life in a circus and the realities of aging, challenged
because of sexual content.
6.
Snow Falling On Cedars (1994) by
David Guterson
Novel,
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction 1995, deals with prejudice against Japanese-Americans in the Pacific
Northwest during and shortly after World War II challenged because parent found some passages
“lewd, vulgar, and profane.”
7.
Song of Solomon (1977) by Toni Morrison
Novel, uses
African myth and African-American folklore to explore themes of identity,
rituals of manhood, naming, and reading, National Book Critics Circle Award
1978, cited in awarding Morrison 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, challenged
because of language and sexual content.
8.
Jubilee (1966) by Margaret Walker
Historical
novel, based on life of Walker’s grandmother, one of the first novels to present the
nineteenth-century African American historical experience in the South from a
black and female point of view, winner of Houghton Mifflin's Literary
Fellowship Award, challenged as “offensive” and “trashy” view of the Old South
that promotes “superiority for white people.” [Note: challenged in 1977 by KKK
and accused of producing “racial strife and hatred.”]
How are you celebrating Banned Books Week? What banned or
challenged books have you read?
