It’s Banned Books Week in the US, an event sponsored by the American Library Association;
BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.
The next Freedom to Read Week in Canada will be from 25 February to 3 March 2007. Here are some books from the Canadian list of challenged books (PDF):
- Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale
- Lynn Reid Banks – The Indian in the Cupboard
- Margaret Laurence – The Diviners
- Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird
- Alice Munro – Lives of Girls and Women
- J.D. Salinger – Catcher in the Rye
- John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men
I am sure that all of the individuals, politicians and members of school boards strongly believe that they know what is best for our children and that banning books would be good for our society. I think that they are wrong.
I am astonished at these inclusions on the Canadian list. Most of them were set books for English literature during my high school years, and To Kill a Mockingbird is still one of my favourites. How did these books go from being considered recommended reading to challenged?
I can’t help feeling that a government that tells kids what they can and can’t read is intruding on parental turf. My gut response is how dare they?
Karyn; these books were challenged by various organisations (not the government in most cases) over the years. If you check the PDF you’ll see that different groups have put pressure on educational institutions to have books banned. In some cases, the courts overturned the book bans.
What is sad is that there are interests across our country that constantly try to ban books. “Of Mice & Men” has been challenged several times.
I agree about banning Margaret Atwood – the woman is both incomprehensible and proof-positive that there is no intelligence in intelligentsia.
As for the others: Shame on them for allowing their limited sensibilities to determine what and how our children should learn. Excluding such things from the educational process prevents them from receiving a broad-based and well-rounded education. It also helps them to form opinions based on prejudice and ignorance rather than fact and a careful, detailed review or comparison.
The idea of banning books is absolutely dreadful. Having the freedom to choose what you read is something that should never be challenged.
In the US, it is not uncommon for students to get through school without even learning how to read. In this regard, putting any more obstacles in the way of reading is just plain stupid.
To ban a book, any book is unethical. Can you really have the heart to ban Hamlet and Harry Potter? Books are my life, to take them is like
cutting my throat. Besides its better for us teenagers to be reading than being on the street doing drugs. Nothing is wrong with a good book. But who is to say a book is wronge? The govoerment? Tut, they probly couldnttell you who R.A Salvatore is.