Banned Books Week: Let Us Not Be Silenced

When you walk inside a library, it’s not just shelves of books you see, but the vast world of storytelling. The collection embraces the unique voices of the authors and their characters, and the best collections include something for everyone. That inclusiveness is so important because we all matter when it comes to the freedom to choose what stories we want to read.

“Banning Books Silences Stories. Speak Out!” is this year’s theme for Banned Books Week (September 23-29), which was selected by the American Library Association. This is a time to celebrate and bring awareness to Intellectual Freedom and the right to read.

Gender identity, racial themes, sexual content, and profanity are just a few of the many reasons books are challenged every year. These challenged books range from classics to fairy tales, nonfiction, and today’s bestsellers. Even though books today are still being challenged, many others rise too with appeals of their own.

The American Library Association tracks these challenges. More than 400 books were challenged or banned in 2017. A few of the most frequently banned books include:

• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
• To Kill a Mockingbird, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee

As a young reader, Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was a controversial banned book. I remember fondly reading this story as well as Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck—yet again, another banned book that I read at school. Books such as these have stayed with me even after all these years. These works, as well as many others, have opened up the window to a world much bigger than just you and I.

Let me say that again, “…the window to a world much bigger than just you and I.”

You may not like a particular book, and that’s okay! I have a few I’m not fond of, and that is my personal right, but it’s never a reason to restrict those titles from everyone else. Censorship hurts us all.

I’ve identified with characters and situations in banned books. I have cried over social situations in banned books. They have taught me new ways of thinking, even empathy and compassion, in a history of stories that are sometimes painful to read. Yes, there is profanity in some of the books I have read, but there is also beautiful, powerful prose within those same pages.

Whether banned book or not, I have the right to read. You have the right to read. We all have the right to read. Censorship of books tramples on those rights, and don’t we all deserve the freedom to read?

Let us not be silenced!

Lisa P.
Information and Readers Services Department