I'm With the Banned

2015 Banned Books display at MCPLS.

It's Sunday, September 27, and that means something important to library nerds like me... it means that it's the first day of Banned Books Week 2015!

I was telling Joey last week that Banned Books Week is my favorite week of the year, to which he sarcastically replied something to the effect of "Oh yea, we LOOOOVE banning books." Yep, I married a smart aleck. For those of you not familiar with Banned Books Week, it's an iniative begun by the American Library Association (ALA for short) to raise awareness about challenges on intellectual freedom.

I'll never forget the first time I heard about books being banned. My parents were fantastic about letting me read just about anything I wanted (within reason), so I had no concept of what it meant to be kept from reading a book because of its' content. Mom, Billy & I were visiting the Marion County Public Library one day when I was either in junior high or early high school, and in the teen/large print fiction room they had this huge poster of banned books. Of course, like any teenager who loved reading, my first response was, "I need to read these books!!" I checked out The Catcher in the Rye that very day, and went on to read a number of the books on the list. Some, like A Clockwork Orange didn't really appeal to me, but my horizons were broadened.

For more infographics on Banned Books, check out this link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/22/
banned-books-week-infographic_n_5852234.html

(Not so) Fun fact. The most challenged author in 2014 was Dav Pilkey, author of the Captain Underpants series. Captain Underpants. Seriously people, what damage can a baby-faced, tighty-whitey wearing superhero cause? Here's a link to a 2013 article about some of the reasons the series has been challenged. Decide for yourself how awful the book sounds.

One of the most exciting things about my new(ish) job doing public relations for the Marion County Public Library System is the opportunity to make displays to bring the same type of awareness about Banned Books Week to teens that I received there as a kid.

Thankfully West Virginia is a state with few (reported) challenges to books. Chris Peterson of the National Coalition Against Censorship and Alita Edelman of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression prepared a map of the United States entitled "Mapping Censorship" (below, right). This map covers the span of 2007-2011 and shows that WV is one of the states with the least amount of challenges. I found a map that showed WV as only having 1 or 2 challenges from 2013 to now, but haven't been able to verify where the books are challenged or when.

View the larger map at http://tinyurl.com/njxxlcu

Long story short, celebrating fREADom should be something that everyone does. Whether or not we agree with the views represented in books, it's up to all citizens to uphold intellectual freedom.

As a fun sidenote, I got to do an interview with WBOY today about Banned Books Week. So fun (and terrifying)!

Go out and read a banned or challenged book today! Here's a list from the ALA of the top 10 most challenged books of 2014 to get you started!