Can't get to a protest? Then read a banned book!

“Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.”

Henry Lewis Gates, Jr. "2 Live Crew, Decoded," 1990

It's Banned Books Week once again, just when First Amendment issues are in the news more than ever. Recent news stories are focusing on the many people who are courageously speaking out to oppose racism. Here at Something Good to Read, we support those speakers and join them in opposing racism and the violence and injustice that are driven by racism. In the area of censorship and challenges to books, more than half of all banned books are by authors of color, according to the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom. (Robert P. Doyle, 2015 - 2016 Books Challenged or Banned).

If you are looking to read a book that has been the subject of a challenge, here is a list of the top 10 books challenged in 2016. Or you can check out this document from the American Library Association listing frequently challenged books; there are many excellent reads listed within it.

For Banned Books week, I'm going to read The Disappearing Spoon: And Other Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean, which was challenged at a Florida middle school. This book was nominated by the Royal Society in the United Kingdom as one of the top science books of 2010 and named an Amazon “Top 5” science book of the year, making it the perfect two-for-one read because, in addition to censorship battles, science is also under attack.

Let's continue to speak out against censorship in literature, and also in movies, plays, exhibits and other areas of expression. Support diverse voices, support our libraries, and keep reading!



  

It's Banned Books Week! What Will You Be Reading?

September 25 to October 1 is Banned Books Week, a time to celebrate our freedom to read and the importance in our society of free and open access to information. This week I will be reading Looking for Alaska by John Green (who also wrote the fabulous book The Fault in Our Stars). In 2015, Looking for Alaska was the book that was most often the target of attempts to have it banned from libraries and schools according to data collected by the American Library Association. So of course, I must read it.

Let's all defend the First Amendment! Exercise your freedom to read and to have access to information. And please support your public library.

2012 Banned Book Week Wrap-Up

I loved reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower for Banned Book Week. Wallflower is about a young teen named Charlie.  Charlie is entering the first year of high school and confronting the confusing, exciting and troubling issues that teens may face.  The book's epistolary style - each chapter consists of a letter Charlie writes to an anonymous friend - allows the author to show us a smart, thoughtful, young man who has some difficult problems. "This is my life," he writes in the first letter, "And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

Author Stephen Chbosky very skillfully captures the teen-scene vibe in Wallflower.  In fact, while reading the book I had a dream, which I haven't had in many, many, many years, of standing in my own high school's hallway, puzzled and embarrassed because I've forgotten the combination to my locker. Bad dreams aside, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is highly recommended reading.

Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", My Read for Banned Books Week 2012.

To help decide what to read for Banned Books Week, I looked over a book called, appropriately, Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read by Robert P. Doyle.  Doyle's book is itself quite interesting and full of intriguing tidbits.  For example, in 1981 the novel Don Quixote was banned by the Chilean military junta for supporting individual freedom and attacking authority.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (hereinafter "Wallflower") warranted in its Banned Books listing about a column and a half of commentary.  The picture below shows photocopies of the listing.  The book is about a young man in his first year of high school and Wallflower's target audience is the high school age reader.  As a result, the challenges were mainly to the book's inclusion on summer reading lists and in school libraries.  Two particular listings transformed this book into an instant must read for me.

First, in 2005 the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction wrote school district superintendents and principals "asking them to make sure that the book is no longer available to minors or any other students."  Oh, Arizona.  What shall we do with you?

Second, a Wisconsin group called West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries worked for four months to have Wallflower (and other books) moved from the community library's young adult section to the adult section and labeled as containing sexual material.  The library board voted unanimously to keep the book in the YA section and rejected labeling or restricting access to it.

So, controversial in Wisconsin.  Banned in Arizona.  And based upon everything I read in Banned Books, I concluded that Wallflower's plot ventures into all the hot button issues of adolescence: sex, drugs, suicide -- even awkwardness.

In sum, it is perfect reading for Banned Books Week.

So I read.  And I'll post more thoughts on The Perks of Being a Wallflower later in the week.

Banned Books Week: September 30 - October 6, 2012.

Banned Books Week starts next Sunday, September 30th.  To mark the occasion I've read Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which has just been released as a movie. With respect to the book, more thoughts later.  Suffice it to say for now that it's amazing.  Consider reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower yourself to celebrate Banned Books Week!

Best Seller Round-Up

"To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor’s prohibited list." ~John Aikin

If following John Aikin's advice for finding a good book, quoted above, sounds better than consulting the best seller list below, then check out the American Library Associations lists of banned and/or challenged books. The ALA collects this information as part of its promotion of the freedom to read. The lists include:

1) Banned and/or challenged novels from the Radcliffe Publishing Course top 100 novels of the 20th century. I'm proud to say that I've read most of these; hurray for liberal arts education.

2) The top 100 banned and/or challenged books of 2000 - 2007. Amazingly, the Harry Potter series is number one on this list. Go figure! Others books on this list I've read but haven't thought about in, well, in decades such as Go Ask Alice by Anonymous. In looking over the list, it seems like the world has changed so little, while at the same time it has changed so much.

As Aikin suggested, choose a good book while also flexing your First Amendment muscles by purchasing, or checking out from the library, a few banned books.

I. The New York Times.
Published April 10, 2009.

Fiction Paperback (Trade): The Shack, William P. Young.
Fiction Hardcover: Long Lost, Harlan Coben.



Nonfiction Paperback: Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
Nonfiction Hardcover: Liberty and Tyranny, Mark R. Levin.

II. Los Angeles Times
Published April 12, 2009.

Fiction Paperback: The Shack, William P. Young.
Fiction Hardcover: True Detectives by Jonathan Kellerman.
Nonfiction Paperback: Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Nonfiction Hardcover: Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, Steve Harvey.

III. Northern California Independent Booksellers.
For the week ending April 5, 2009.

Fiction Paperback (Trade): The Elegance of the Hedgehog Muriel Barbery.
Fiction Hardcover: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows .
Nonfiction Paperback: Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin.
Nonfiction Hardcover: Outliers, The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell.

IV. Heartland Indie Bestseller List.
Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association
For the week ending March 29, 2009.

Fiction Paperback (Trade): The Shack, William P. Young.
Fiction Hardcover: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows .
Nonfiction Hardcover: Liberty and Tyranny, Mark R. Levin.
Nonfiction Paperback (Trade): Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin.