Those who keep track of censorship and the like are well aware that September 25th – October 2nd is National Banned Books week! I volunteered to do the Banned Books display in the lobby, a feat that was undertaken with rigor and assembled with haste. Luckily (or brilliantly!) the plan was for the display to resemble a hastily boarded-up store front; thus a fitfully created display was sort-of like method acting!
Originally the plan was to have the display boarded up with brown paper, graffiti’d with various quotes and drawings related to censorship and free speech. And that’s MOSTly how it went, although I had to ditch a stencil logo on the front for lack of spray paint/stencil-creating-patience. I draw it by hand instead, after the sheet had already been hung up. It was a challenge. Expect pictures forthright!
If you want to read a banned book, read the last book banned in the USA, namely, Fanny Hill, last banned in 1963.
No books have been banned in the USA for about a half a century. See “National Hogwash Week.”
Thomas Sowell says Banned Books Week is “the kind of shameless propaganda that has become commonplace in false charges of ‘censorship’ or ‘book banning’ has apparently now been institutionalized with a week of its own.” He calls it “National Hogwash Week.”
Former ALA Councilor Jessamyn West said, “It also highlights the thing we know about Banned Books Week that we don’t talk about much — the bulk of these books are challenged by parents for being age-inappropriate for children. While I think this is still a formidable thing for librarians to deal with, it’s totally different from people trying to block a book from being sold at all.” See “Banned Books Week is Next Week.”
And then there’s Judith Krug herself who created BBW:
“Marking 25 Years of Banned Books Week,” by Judith Krug, Curriculum Review, 46:1, Sep. 2006. “On rare occasion, we have situations where a piece of material is not what it appears to be on the surface and the material is totally inappropriate for a school library. In that case, yes, it is appropriate to remove materials. If it doesn’t fit your material selection policy, get it out of there.”
Lastly, remember the ALA does not oppose book burning when doing so would interfere with its political interests. Go see what Judith Krug said about Cuban librarians: “American Library Association Shamed,” by Nat Hentoff.
That said, you have a really cool looking blog.
That is an interesting (and true!) point about Banned Books Week, although I feel that taking the ‘Banned Books’ part too literally undercuts the very real danger of censorship, the danger of the suppression of ideas. Take into account the number of cases in more recent years of teachers being penalized or fired for the books they have on reading lists. Those books weren’t banned- yet the opinions of a few righteous people prevailed none the less. Consider the Pastor who was calling for Quran-Burning day. Book-banning? No. Destructive, ugly, hateful? Yes. Just because the channels aren’t through the government, just because they’re not pulling books from library shelves doesn’t mean it’s not an important issue that means to be thought about and discussed.
Several of the most popular books challenged this year were indeed challenged by parents because they were considered age-inappropriate. However, the parents were challenging these books to have these books pulled from school libraries. If a parent considers a book inappropriate for their child, then they should stop their child from reading it. But who says they should be allowed to decide for everybody else’s children? Furthermore, a lot of the books being considered offensive are not so age-inappropriate- consider “And Tango Makes Three.” Would this book have been challenged if the two penguin-parents had been male-female? Absolutely not.
In Fahrenheit 451 (itself censored when first published), Faber tells Montag (and I’m paraphrasing, so apologies if I get something wrong) that the government didn’t take books away from people. People gave books up, and everything books stood for. So maybe BBW isn’t so much about banned books as much as it is a way for people to announce that they’re not going to give books up.
Your logo says, “Too punk for a state job, or so they tell me.” I think it should say “Too commonsensical for a state job, or so they tell me.”
Thank you so much.