A
really good book about banned books is 120
Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature by Nicholas J.
Karolides, Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova.
The 2005 edition features books that have been banned for a variety of
reasons and in the process, describes what each book is about and presents
reasons for why the book is significant to our history.
The
book identifies books that were suppressed on political grounds, religious
grounds, sexual grounds and social grounds.
Some books could overlap.
“Although
the literary merit of the majority of those books has been proven time and time
again,” says the back cover, “efforts are still in place today to suppress some
of them.”
I
hope by calling attention to this, readers everywhere will react with outrage
and concern. We each must make sure no
book gets banned from libraries, schools, or bookstores, that no government
bans a book, and that no corporate entity has the ability to make a book
disappear.
So
many famous best-selling authors have seen their works banned. J.K. Rowling, Mark Twain, Voltaire, John
Updike, Harper Lee, and Toni Morrison have had books banned. Here are some of the banned books that have
risen above their haters:
·
Animal Farm by George Orwell
·
The Grapes of
Wrath
by John Steinbeck
·
Manifests of the
Communist Party
by Karl Marx
·
The Bible
·
The Koran
·
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
·
Ulysses by James Joyce
·
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
·
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
·
Lolita by Vladimir
Nabokov
·
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
·
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
·
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel
Hawthorne
120 Banned Books contains books
that cover 2,000 years of censorship.
“No
one book or writer is protected from would be censors,” notes Dr. Sova in the
introduction.
“As
readers of the censorship histories in 120
Banned Books will realize,” writes Dr. Sova, “the reasons for which these
books have been banned, suppressed and censored are often highly subjective,
and the success or failure of efforts to ban, suppress or censor books depends
more upon how vocal the challengers are rather than upon the merits of the
book.”
Our
society has a history of censoring important ideas and truths accepted by a
significant number of people.
Censorship and book bans go on today, here in the U.S. and abroad. We must be vigilant and informed in order to
beat back book banning bullies.
PC
movements, ignorance, fear, politics, and religion play a big role in how books
are distributed or controlled within a community. Banning a book can backfire. Banned books become big sellers and generate
media attention. If you want a book to
go away, one would be best served to just ignore it and not try to kill it.
There’s
a long history to book bans and 120
Banned Books does a good job of putting this into perspective.
“In
many cases,” notes Dr. Sova, “the same book has been banned at different times
for different reasons, as is the case with Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Stendhals
The Red and the Black, Voltaire’s Candide,
and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
The books do not change, but the social climate does.”
In
an earlier edition of this book, Ken Wachsberger noted:
“Americans
live in relative freedom. Yet censorship
also has been a menace throughout U.S. history…Many of our richest literary
works -- The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, The Grapes of Wrath, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Catch-22 -- have been censored at one time or another. Advancing technology has provided more
diverse targets -- the record, film and television industries and the Internet -- for
school boards, local governments, religious fanatics and moral crusaders to
take aim at as they work to restrict free expression and the freedom to read,
watch and listen, in order to shield their children, and you, from original or
disturbing thoughts.”
When
we look at book bans and challenges by institutions, school libraries, schools,
and public libraries are the most problematic.
These are the places that need protection, where all books need to be
treated fairly.
A
Wikipedia entry on banned books says:
‘Books
are still banned throughout the world.
Nowhere in the world can everything be published, although the
prohibitions vary strikingly from one country to another; hate speech, for
example is prohibited in a number of countries, such as Sweden, though the same
books, may be legal in the United States or United Kingdom, where the only
prohibition is on child pornography.
Some believe that the banning of specific books is appropriate, such as
the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in Russia, or Hitler’s Mein
Kampf, in Austria.”
So
what can or should you do?
The
Office for Intellectual Freedom suggests you:
·
Stay
informed about books being challenged or banned.
·
Organize
your own Book Ban Week event or attend one.
·
Help
spread the word.
·
Speak
out including writing letters to the editor.
·
Read
a banned book.
·
Join
the Freedom to Read Foundation.
·
Proclaim
Banned Books Week at your public library
According
to Slate.com, 311 books were
banned or challenged in schools and libraries in 2014. Over 11,000 titles have been challenged since the inception of Banned Books Week -- which combats book bans -- in 1982
“Once
upon a time, book bans were a serious issue in the United States,” Slate
writes. “The Cornstock Law, passed by
Congress in 1873, made it illegal to circulate “obscene literature,” Even classics like The Canterbury Tales fell under that description in the eyes of
Victorian moralists and in the middle of the last century, publishers and
booksellers of forbidden novels, including Tropic
of Cancer and Fanny Hill were
actually prosecuted in court.”
What books are under threat today – and which ones will be banned tomorrow? Get informed and get involved to protect the First Amendment. For more information, please consult: www.bannedbooksweek.org.
It’s time to ban book bans!
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