Banned Books Week Celebrates the Freedom to Read

What do the classics the Catcher in the Rye, Call of the Wild, The Lord of the Rings and Gone with the Wind all have in common? They are all books that have been banned or burned at one time or another. 

Banned Books Week is coming to a close, but there is still time to open the pages and read a few of these literary works. 

The week of Sept. 24-Oct. 1 was set aside to celebrate the freedom to read and the First Amendment and Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the negative impact of censorship in the United States, according to the American Library Association.

In 2010, there were roughly 348 challenges reported to the office of Intellectual Freedom, though it is believed many more challenges go unreported, according to Banned Books Week. 

“The is proud to join the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, and many other organizations in celebrating the freedom to read,” said John Spears, executive director of the . “Banned Books Week gives us, and libraries throughout the country, the opportunity to highlight the harms of censorship and the suppression of ideas. A fundamental mission of public libraries is to provide the full array of viewpoints, and we will always support the right of our users to free and open access to information.”

In 2010, the 10 most challenged titles included the following:

• And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
  Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
  Reasons: offensive language, racism, religious viewpoint, sex education, sexually explicit, violence, unsuited to age group
• Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
  Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit
• Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
  Reasons: drugs, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit
• The Hunger Games (series), by Suzanne Collins
  Reasons: sexually explicit, violence, unsuited to age group
• Lush, by Natasha Friend
  Reasons: drugs, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group
• What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
  Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
  Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint
• Revolutionary Voices edited by Amy Sonnie
  Reasons: homosexuality, sexually explicit
• Twilight (series), by Stephenie Meyer
  Reasons: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence, unsuited to age group

Source: Banned Books Week 

Some of the challenged classics listed as the top 100 novels of the 20th century include:

• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
• The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger
• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
• The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
• Ulysses, by James Joyce
• The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
• 1984, by George Orwell
• Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

Source: American Library Association