By Niall McArdle
This is Banned Books Week in the United States. Banned Books Week is the national book community’s annual celebration of the freedom to read. Hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events.
Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982. According to the American Library Association, there were 464 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2012, and many more go unreported.
You can post a video proclaiming your love of banned books at the Virtual Read-Out on You Tube.
To celebrate Banned Books Week, here is a list of some titles, both fiction and non-fiction, that have been banned in various places.
Reasons: Inappropriate and seditious hidden imagery
Reasons: Homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit
Reasons: Sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence
Reasons: Mysticism, sexual inferences, profanity, racism, references to tobacco and alcohol, and claims that it promotes disobedience, drugs, and communism.
Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group
I didn’t know this sort of week existed – it’s a wonderful idea!
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