“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.”
— Stephen Chbosky
Author of the frequently challenged “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”
This is National Banned Book Week. It is a celebration of the freedom to read. This annual observance is sponsored by various associations dedicated to free expression, including the American Library Association, Amnesty International, Authors Guild, PEN America, and PFLAG. It is also supported by book publishers. This year’s theme is “Books Unite Us – Censorship Divides Us.”Banned Book Week began in 1982 by the ALA in response to an increase of challenging and banning books. There were 729 challenges in 2021, calling for the removal of nearly 1,600 books from libraries.Most of them were either by or about Black or LGBT+ persons.
So What?
Reading allows us to expand our knowledge, to understand other people’s experiences and cultures. It allows for discussion and exchange of ideas, especially in the schools. This is how we learn new things. It is how we learn about others around us and about ourselves. Most of the books being challenged this year are books for youth. Such bans deprive children and young adults of a safe way of understanding their classmates, or to find support for their own struggles. Banning a source of true learning makes it easier to spread misinformation, bias and fear. Parents certainly have the right to determine what their children read or don’t read, but they do not have the right to make that decision for others.
In other words
“Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.” — Alfred Whitney Griswold, author, historian
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” — Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
“Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.” – Henry Louis Gates Jr.
“Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.” – Laurie Halse Anderson, author
Frequently banned books
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M
Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
Visit your local library today and check out a banned book!
