Category: Banned Books Week
Banned Book Week Ideas for Rural Libraries
While book banning is a growing trend nationwide, the majority of successful book bans happening right now seem to be occurring in rural areas (both fringe and remote rural) as well as some suburban areas. The initiatives and toolkits presently available for all librarians are great, but they are created by urban LIS professionals and best-suited for urban and suburban audiences. The current rhetoric used in these one-size-fits-all toolkits may not be effective in rural areas.
New Banned Books Week Materials and More Debut in Spring/Summer ALA Graphics Catalog
ALA Graphics has announced their Spring/Summer 2022 catalog, containing official promotional materials for Banned Books Week, Library Card Sign-Up Month, and more.
Banned Books Week 2021 Twitter Roundup
Banned Books Week 2021 took place from September 26 through October 2. Here’s a roundup of its coverage on Twitter.
Can You Ban an E-Book?
As many prisons forgo physical materials altogether and embrace e-reader and tablet programs, it is unclear what effect these changes will have on an incarcerated person’s right to read. Can you ban an e-book? What does censorship look like in digital form?
Fall IFRT All Membership Gathering
The Intellectual Freedom Round Table (IFRT) invites all current members to attend our fall All Member Gathering of IFRT on Friday, October 22nd, 2021 from 4pm-5pm (Central Time). This virtual gathering will feature Banned Books Week show and tell, trivia, and time to chat and meet other IFRT members.
Intellectual Freedom Censorship After Banned Books Week
Examining the top 10 challenged books of 2020 during Banned Books Week reveals deeper and more widespread attempts to limit intellectual freedom.
A Censored Science Book for Banned Books Week
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is the most commonly banned science book and is important in laying the foundation for evolutionary biology. Darwin’s widely accepted theory of natural selection is the key to understanding genetics, pathogens, and epidemiology – critically important topics as misconceptions about science influence politics and public health policy.
Banned Books Week — More Than a Display
For the past couple years I have been trying to amp up my Banned Books Week program ideas so it is more than just a display. Here are some of the ideas I have come across over the years. Maybe at the very least, it can get your creative juices flowing.
Amnesty International Sheds Light on the High Cost of Corrupt Government Censorship
Banned Books Week is an opportunity to highlight stories that challenge the status quo. Many libraries display literature that individuals and organizations with an agenda want to withhold. The American […]
Restricted Reading: New Original Audio Series on Prison Censorship
Restricted Reading is a new original series of short personal audio narratives that examines access to information in prison and the right to intellectual freedom for the more than 2.2 million people incarcerated in America today.
One thought on “Banned Books Week”
The Poetic Depiction of Truth Should Never Be Silenced.
Anne Frank stunned me with the ugliness of the Nazis and what hate and prejudice can produce while I was an innocent 4th grader. The murder of six million Jews. How else would I have known the world, but through Anne’s words? I grew up on a little Idaho ranch. It remains my favorite book because it painted an ugliness, I could not imagine but knew was real.
To Kill a Mockingbird shook my bones when I was but thirteen. How could there be such injustice? There was and is. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, “Florida locks up a higher percentage of its people than any democracy on earth.” Black inmates outstrip Caucasian inmates by more than 2 to 1.
In Polk County, The Kiterunner is in “a time out.” (One of the finest books I have ever read.)
In Flagler County, All Boys Aren’t Blue has been stripped of its rightful place on public library shelves. How does the parent of a gay boy react to that? “Step into the shadows. Deeper. Deeper, still. Pretend you are not who you are.” How cruel to disenfranchise a boy from his inner self.
I read The Bluest Eye when I was fifteen. It was as close and as handy as my school library. The vivid story remains with me today. A young girl named Pecola fled violence at her home. If only she had blue eyes, she believes, then she wouldn’t be ugly. It is heartbreaking and wrong. It is banned in many states and claims the argumentative spotlight at school board meetings across the country.
Oh, by the way, in many states Captain Underpants (that outlandish hero who gets many a reluctant child to read) is banned. I mean underpants that are front and center in every general reading magazine and commercial any child could look at. (And at Walmart, or in their drawer.)
And then comes the Pulitzer-winning Maus. A young man trying to understand his father who was in Auschwitz. It is a comic strip, but real, raw, and very readable. We see stacks of emaciated naked bodies piled up like trash in historical photos. But here there is a naked mouse that has created the book banners to beat their chests.
I say, “Ban the Book Banners!”