2010 Banned Books Week

What do Stephanie Meyer (author of the Twilight series), Alice Walker, Rudolfo Anaya, Toni Morrison, J.K. Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series), Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Steven King, Zora Neale Hurston, Shel Silverstein and Maya Angelou all have in common? They are all authors of banned books, some of which will be spotlighted during Banned Books Week.

Never heard of Banned Books Week? Here's a description from the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom:

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. [It] highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of
unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

Books are banned or contested around the world for many reasons. What might be permissible in the United States might not be elsewhere and vice versa, and what might be accepted in one part of the nation might receive hostility in another part. Most banned books are challenged because they are perceived as pornographic, unpatriotic or heretical, containing language offensive to one or another group or for depicting violence or unsettling situations.

(Sidebar: It's important to mention that the issue of banned books is not as cut and dried as it may seem; everyone has preferences and biases, ideas that they believe should be preserved in print and ideas that they feel should not. In any case, when a book is banned it amounts to it being pulled from library shelves, removed from schools' approved reading lists or forbidden by a religious institution.)

Here is an annotated list of some book titles banned in the US and compiled by the American Library Association.

This year the banned books week nation-wide observance will extend from September 25 to October 2.

The Georgia Perimeter College-Decatur campus Learning and Tutoring Center supports the Learning and Resources Center (library) as they host an open-mic Read Out in recognition of Banned Books Week. The event will happen on September 29 from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. and on September 30 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the campus courtyard.

For more information about this even or to sign up, visit the Learning Resources Center (Library SA-3100), call (678) 891-2585 or contact claudia.shorr@gpc.edu or adrienne.graham@gpc.edu.


Related Articles:

10 Ways to Celebrate Banned Books Week (The New York Times)

Campaigners Defend 'Celebrated Novels' from US Censors (The Guardian, UK)