Banned Books Week!

It's my favorite library time of year again: Banned Books Week!  This year, it's going amazingly well for me.  On Monday, before the small public library opened, I created a book display.  It had the Top Ten Banned Books of 2012, each with the rationale for banning and challenging.  Impressively, the library has nine out of ten; only And Tango Makes Three is not owned.  I also put together various books for the rest of the display shelving, and some face-out books above the shelves and on some tables.  The face-out books had slips of paper on them, with information about their challenges.

On Tuesday, my staff told me what a hit the display was.  I was shocked, because I honestly didn't know how it would go over in a small, rural town with an aged service population.  But a high school teacher checked out two young adult books to discuss censorship, and the books themselves, with his classes.  Patrons - and staff members - were intrigued by the reasons on the books, and wanted more!  So I labeled the rest of the books on display.

Here are some pictures of Banned Books Week in my little library.  I'm so pleased at the reception it's received.

Top Ten Banned Books of 2012
Several are checked out!

The key to a successful Banned Books Week is to celebrate the freedom to read.

The note on The Witches declares that Roald Dahl is a misogynist.

Classics are often banned and challenged.

The Call of the Wild

The Call of the Wild was burned in 1929 in Italy and Yugoslavia for being "too radical."

There are some wild women in books.

Harriet will teach your children to spy, lie, and swear, while Scarlett behaved immorally.

Children's and young adults' books are frequently called into question.

Remember, read freely and responsibly, and you and you alone are responsible for what you read.  Not other people.  And you have no right to tell other people what they can and cannot read, either.  Only minors in your care are subject to your views.


I have been reading some books greatly appropriate for this week, and will have to review them by the end of Saturday!  Stay tuned for a double feature of Burned and its recently published sequel, Smoke, by Ellen Hopkins, and a review of the audio version of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (one of 2012's top ten), written and read by Sherman Alexie.