Let Freedom Read

It's become a sad tradition on my blog.  I so wish it was an unnecessary tradition.

October 1-7 is Banned Book Week. 

It seems that every year, observing this week (which actually is needed each and every week of the year) becomes more and more important.  Our freedoms are slipping away.  We will lose them if we don't value them. 

This year, the theme is "Let Freedom Read".  I wish I could copy an email I received yesterday from the New York Public Library, written by author Judy Blume.  She said it so much more elegantly than I can.

Here is an explanation of some of the terms being used below.

Here is an infographic.  One of these sobering statistics is how much censorship has been on the rise.  Incidents have almost doubled between 2021 and 2022. (I apologize for the size of this infographic; I can't make it any bigger.  However, you can find the original of this and the one below at the American Library Association website. ) Or, one can only hope, at your own public library, where you may also find a display of banned books. 

At our local library, my spouse picked up one of the books from a display of books that have been banned:  The Call of the Wild, by Jack London.  He loved that book as a child (as did I).

I've read at least two other books that have been banned from time to time as part of my schooling:  Animal Farm by George Orwell, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.  My son read another banned book as part of his schooling: The Giver, by Lois Lowry.

If you look at reasons books are challenged or banned, they will range widely, from the author's political beliefs, to violence, to descriptions of witchcraft, to profanity, to depictions of drug use.  

In 2022, Dr. Seuss Enterprises decided to no longer offer for publication six Dr. Seuss books.

Sometimes, all it takes is someone wondering if a library even has a book.

Take, for example, the example of the library in Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

I was so fortunate to have parents who did not control my reading.  They would take me to the library, or to a bookstore, and just stand by while I made my selections.  Never once did they try to change my mind.  They might discuss a book with me, but I was free to read it.

These are the top "most challenged" books, noting there is a big difference between challenged and banned (as explained in a link at the beginning of this post). 

People can challenge books in an effort to protect children (the largest group challenging are parents) from difficult ideas or situations but too many times it comes down to a desire to censor beliefs that run counter to certain groups' or powerful interests' beliefs.  But don't take it from me.

Quoting from the ALA's website:

"As Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in Texas v. Johnson , said most eloquently:

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

If we are to continue to protect our First Amendment, we would do well to keep in mind these words of Noam Chomsky:

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

Or these words of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (" The One Un-American Act." Nieman Reports , vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 1953, p. 20):

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."

Freedom of reading.  Freedom of thought.

Let Freedom Read.