THE LAST WEEK IN SEPTEMBER

September 23-30, 2006, the 25th Anniversary of Banned Books Week. Celebrated every year since 1982 in the last week of September.

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."—Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird"

The quote comes from a Pulitzer Prize-winning book that's been denounced for so-called racial slurs and profanity, and banished from school library shelves.

The American Library Association keeps an accounting of objectionable reads.

Can You believe this, here are just a few.

1."Harry Potter" (Series) (J.K. Rowling)
2."To Kill a Mockingbird" (Harper Lee)
3."The Color Purple" (Alice Walker)
4."The Outsiders" (S.E. Hinton)
5."Lord of the Flies" (William Golding)
6."Of Mice and Men" (John Steinbeck)
7."Goosebumps" (Series) (R.L. Stine)
8."How to Eat Fried Worms" (Thomas Rockwell)
9."The Catcher in the Rye" (J.D. Salinger)
10."The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (Mark Twain)
11."The Giver" (Lois Lowry)
12."Brave New World" (Aldous Huxley)
13."The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (Mark Twain)
14."Captain Underpants" (Dav Pilkey)
15."The Anarchist Cookbook" (William Powell)
16."Carrie" (Stephen King)
17."Flowers for Algernon" (Daniel Keyes)
18."The Dead Zone" (Stephen King)
19."I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" (Maya Angelou)
20."Go Ask Alice" (anonymous)
21."American Psycho" (Bret Easton Ellis)
22."The Chocolate War" (Robert Cormier)
23."James and the Giant Peach" (Roald Dahl)
24."The Pigman" (Paul Zindel)
25."A Wrinkle in Time" (Madeleine L'Engle)
Read the article here and some of the comments made 'A Long Shelf Life' .


Read more here:'100 Most Frequently Challenged Books'.

"Often challenges are motivated by a desire to protect children from “inappropriate” sexual content or “offensive” language. Although this is a commendable motivation, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (ALA's basic policy concerning access to information) states that,
“Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents—and only parents—have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children—and only their children—to library resources.” Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment. "
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Books are no longer called banned they are called challenged or objectionable. hmmm
Shouldn't the parent be the one to decide what their child /teen, is mature enough to read.

I am so grateful for all of the librarians who fought to keep certain books on their bookshelves and these other great people of wisdom.
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As Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in Texas v. Johnson, said most eloquently:

“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”
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If we are to continue to protect our First Amendment, we would do well to keep in mind these words of Noam Chomsky:

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”
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Or these words of "Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (The One Un-American Act." Nieman Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 1953, p. 20):

“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”
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My Thanks, to every author who's books have taken me to places, I have never been before.