Banned Books: Protecting Our Society or Infringing on Freedom of Speech?
HERE'S WHAT I THINK
Banned Books: Protecting Our Society or Infringing on Freedom of Speech?
Challenging or banning books is a practice as old as the history of writing books. Throughout time, governments, religious organizations, and other groups ban books determined as controversial or against societal norms. In the beginning, burning books was an effective means of destroying the controversial material because of limited printing. With larger publishing capability and the Internet's vast reach, burning books is a little less effective, but it is still done.
Challenging or banning books is not limited to a particular country or time period -- there are banned books in every country today. Every year in the U.S., hundreds of books are challenged to be removed from classrooms and libraries.
The debate is whether this is a good practice, not whether the practice exists. Pro banners cite authors' works are too immoral, deviant, and could cause aberrant behavior. Anti banners cite books should be protected for the authors' freedom of speech.
Is banning books a good idea for society? In my opinion, I don't think so. While I believe in the power of words and the need for social rules, I do not think banning books helps control society. I think banning books infringes on an author's freedom of speech and prevents people from experiencing new ideas.
Image Credit: American Library Association - Banned Books Week
ALA List of Banned or Challenged Books - 100 Banned Books: How Many Have You Read?
The ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) records the most challenged or banned over the years. The OIF has only been recording this data since 1990, so frequently banned authors or books prior to that date aren't included. Most of these books are considered "classic literary" in today's world, and actually 42 of the books are on the Radcliffe Publishing Course list of the century's top 100 novels.
Can you IMAGINE your life if censoring these books had been effective? For a moment, imagine these books banned forever -- and banned from every classroom, library, and home in every country across the globe.
Posters have commented that some of these books are "challenged" at the school level from being required reading or included in the school libraries. Find out why: Reasons for Frequently Challenged Books.
How many of these challenged or banned books have you read?
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
13. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
23. Their Eyes are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp by John Irving
38. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
41. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia by Willa Cather
52. Howards End by E. M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
57. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
66. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
68. Light in August by William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians by Henry James
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster
99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
30 Years of Banned Books Week: 1982 - 2012
Image Credit: American Library Association
Banned Book Week and the Top Ten Challenged Books - September 22, 2013 - September 28, 2013
Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
Thanks to librarians, teachers, and communities of concerned citizens, many books are not banned. One of the missions of Banned Books Week is to spread awareness of the dangers of limiting freedom of speech, while celebrating the power of words.
From the American Library Association: In 2011, 326 challenges were reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom. The following books made the top most challenged books for 2011.
1. ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
2. The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
3. The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence
4. My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
5. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
6. Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Reasons: nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint
7. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit
8. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
Reasons: nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit
9. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
Reasons: drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit
10. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Reasons: offensive language; racism
To learn more, please visit the ALA's site and information on Banned Books Week.
- ALA | Banned Books Week
Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom
Image Credit: American Library Association
YOUR TURN! - What do you think?
Banned Books: Protecting Our Society or Infringing on Freedom of Speech?
Pick Up a Good Book, Even a Banned or Challenged One
Image Credit: American Library Association
Buy Challenged Books on Amazon - Classic Reads and Top Novels
As a book reviewer, my goal is to read more books from the list of challenged or banned books -- books considered to be the century's top 100 novels. Here are some I may re-read this year. What about you? Will you choose to read (or re-read) these classics?
Open Your Mind, Explore Banned Books
Share the word with friends
Many people commented that they have several favorites on the list of challenged or banned books. Why not start a challenge yourself -- to READ your way through the banned / challenged book list. Here's a great resource, including clip art, previous years' lists and the reasons behind the challenges.
Image Credit:American Library Association: Banned Books Week, Free Downloads