I Read Banned Books

 

Not long ago, the American Library Association compiled a list Top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books: 2010-2019. 

As the ALA  explains: “The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has been documenting attempts to ban books in libraries and schools since 1990. OIF compiled this list of the most banned and challenged books from 2010-2019 by reviewing both the public and confidential censorship reports it received.”

I’ve read 39 books on this list of 100. True, most of the books I’ve yet to read are recently (within the last five or so years) published.  I’m really looking forward to reading The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas.

Some of the classics, like George Orwell’s 1984, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, and most certainly The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, I’ve read more than once. In fact, I’ve read Twain and Lee several times, I once considered Huck Finn and Scout my best friends. And I had a bit of a crush on Tom Sawyer.

How many have you read from the list?

“[Banned books] are stories that encourage kids to think for themselves, to learn about themselves, to understand that there are people different from them in the world and that’s not only okay, it’s fascinating. […]

Books create compassion; they create safe spaces where empathy is developed, and every time you ban a book you are taking away that lesson from a kid. We are not protecting children from salacious material — we are removing the tools that we give them to make sense of a world that is very confusing and difficult for a lot of kids.” – Jodi Picoult ( Books, Beaches andBeyond Podcast )

 

In a more recent compilation, ALA highlights the  Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024:  

As ALA explains, “The 2024 data reported to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) shows that the majority of book censorship attempts are now originating from organized movements. Pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members and administrators initiated 72% of demands to censor books in school and public libraries.”

Of this list, I’ve read four.  How many have you’ve read?

“I believe that censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children’s lives. This fear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe that if their children don’t read about it, their children won’t know about it. And if they don’t know about it, it won’t happen.” – Judy Blume

 

Tony Marx, the NYPL President, explains it much more eloquently: 

“What so many misunderstand about banning a book is that the repercussions stretch way beyond the book itself. We're not being dramatic when we say that banning a book is the first step toward erasing not just someone's work, but their humanity, and their surrounding culture. 

Put another way, if you don't think a person's perspective should be allowed on a bookshelf, and if you're so afraid of what they have to say and who they might be that you want to silence them and hide them from your children, you are one move closer to treating them as if they don't exist or shouldn't. It's the first step on a journey toward ignorance, hate, and all-too-real violence."

 

Reading has always played an important role in my life. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t reading something.  In the early grades, I skipped the boring picturebooks and went straight for the good stuff: Lassie, Black Beauty and Gentle Ben.  I read The Yearling and Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows, drowning in my own tears with every read. I loved everything with pirates, and dreamt of finding treasure on an island. I wanted to be a part of Robin Hood's merry 'gang.' My favorite Musketeer was Athos, and I rooted for Moby Dick. I wanted to be one for all with the Baker Street Irregulars. I was the geek reading Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. By eighth grade, I was reading LOTR. These books kept me company at a time when I needed friends. These books made the world make sense when everything was upside down. These books also let me know that dreams were possible.

 

 

By the way, in honor of Banned Books week, Lorin Oberweger and Free Expressions is offering a list of titles you might want to check out via her little bookstore on Bookshop.org. Use code: BBW25 to get 20% off and strike a small blow for freedom of expression! (Any proceeds go to funding scholarships for Free Expressions webinars and workshops.) There are many excellent books here, for readers and writers! 

So tell me, why do you read?

And by the way, thank you for reading!

-- Bobbi Miller