Banned Books
30 July 2005 6 CommentsI have been seeing this “Booking Through Thursday” meme floating around on some of the blogs I read and since I am a librarian after all and I do like to read, I thought maybe I would give it a go now and again. As I usually do when it comes to these meme-thingies, I am posting late, but as I have said before, this is my blog and I will post what I want, when I want! 
Anyway, on to “Booking Through Thursday,” brought to you this week on Saturday. The questions this week focus on a subject near and dear to my heart: banned books.
Unfortunately, even in America, books are often challenged and sometimes even banned. In library terms, a challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials from the curriculum or library, based upon the objections of a person or group, thereby restricting the access of others. A banning is the successful removal of those materials. Books usually are challenged with the best intentions—to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information.
However, librarians believe that “[t]he freedom to read is essential to our democracy” and therefore “[it is necessary to] uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources.”
Celebrate freedom! Read a banned book today.
Here are a few examples of books that have at one point or another been banned in the United States: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, and Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
And now for the questions!
Have you read any of the books I listed above?
Actually, I have read them all. Not only am I a librarian, I was an English major in college!
Have you ever knowingly read a banned book?
I have never read a book just because it was banned. However, given my background in literature and librarianship, I tend to know if a book has been challenged and/or banned when I read it.
Knowing that the above books have been banned, would you read them now? Why?
As I said, I have already read them all. However, I took a quick look at ALA’s 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1999-2000 and the top 3 were Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz, Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. I have read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Angelou, but not the others. I would read them because I would like to know what the fuss is about and because my professional ethics would never allow me to pass judgment on a book one way or another without reading it first.
