Banned Books Week: Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Freedom to Read

September 30−October 6, 2012

            http://www.ala.org
 
Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community –- librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types –- in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship. Banned Books Week 2012 marks its 30th anniversary. Thousands of individuals and institutions across the United States participate in Banned Books Week each year, and it has grown into a premier literary event and a national awareness and advocacy campaign around censorship.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted with removal or restrictions in libraries and schools. While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read.
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The degree of control of certain publications from country to country differs and at different periods of time. Many of these restrictions are considered to be obscene, which could be considered the suppressing of sexual content, racism, glorifying drugs or social standing. 

Governments have also sought to ban certain books that they perceived to contain material that could threaten, embarrass or criticize it—religious authorities (claiming to protect the innocent), immorality as well as profanity.

Banned or challenged books are those that have been removed from the shelves of libraries, bookstores, or classrooms because of its controversial content. In the past some of these books have been burned and or refused further publication.

This is a form of censorship and hits the very core of our freedom to read. From September 30^th-October 6, 2012 we celebrate ‘banned book’ week and read, read and read. Below is just an inkling of some of those books by years.

Take the time this week and pick up one or three of them, and maybe you can see why they were banned or challenged.

According to Mike Clark, president of the Association of London Chief Librarians, “Banned Books Week points up the ludicrousness of banning legitimate literature. perhaps more than any other profession, librarians find themselves dealing with the reality of censorship on a day to day basis. In bringing together these controversial titles of past and present, Banned Books gives us an opportunity to discuss what freedom of expression means today." So what do you think?

List of banned books from the 1600's-2000's

About a Silence in Literature

Živorad Stojković

A Feast for the Seaweeds (1983)

Haidar Haidar

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Lewis Carroll

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

Erich Maria Remarque

American Psycho (1991)

Bret Easton Ellis

Angaray (1932)

Sajjad Zaheer

Animal Farm (1945)

George Orwell

Areopagitica (1644)

John Milton

A Spoon on Earth

Hyeon Gi-yeong

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008)

Ha-Joon Chang

Big River, Big Sea — Untold Stories of 1949 (2009)

Lung Ying-tai

Borstal Boy (1958)

Brendan Behan

Brave New World (1932)

Aldous Huxley

Burger's Daughter (1979)

Nadine Gordimer

Candide (1759)

Voltaire

The Country Girls (1960)

Edna O'Brien

Curved River (1963)

Živojin Pavlović

The Da Vinci Code (2003)

Dan Brown

The Death of Lorca (1971)

Ian Gibson

The Diary of Anne Frank (1947)

Anne Frank

Augie