The Giver (1993), by Lois Lowry, tells the story of a utopian future society where poverty, crime, sickness, and unemployment are a thing of the past. Jonas, a 12-year-old, is chosen to be the next Receiver of Memories; but Jonas soon learns that the price of this knowledge is more […]
Written in 1982 by Alice Walker, The Color Purple tells the story of black life during the 1930s in the Southern United States from a female’s perspective. The Pulitzer Prize winning (1983) novel is told in the form of diary entries and correspondence letters over a 30-year period, following Celie […]
Coming in at #40 on the American Library Association’s banned book list, surprisingly to many, is J.R.R Tolkien’s epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. The classic trilogy, along with The Hobbit, has been banned in many schools and public libraries across the nation. These works have been celebrated around […]
When Abraham Lincoln met author Harriet Beecher Stowe, he said: “so this is the little lady who made this big war.” The impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was tantamount to its popularity as the second best-selling book of the 19th century behind the Bible. Published in 1852, it did indeed […]
Back in October, 2010 I heard about Banned Book week. This is a project spearheaded by the American Library Association as “an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment”. Held during the last week of September, Banned Book Week highlights the benefits of free and open […]
As I Lay Dying, by American author William Faulkner, was published in 1930. The title derives from Book XI of Homer’s The Odyssey, when Agamemnon says to Odysseus: “As I lay dying, the woman with the dog’s eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades.” As I […]
Since 1990 there have been more than 50,000 incidents in which a book’s right to an existence has been called into question. Why? For nothing more than the simple fact that they expressed ideas that made someone, somewhere, feel uncomfortable; and that discomfort was taken as a personal offense. There […]
And Tango Makes Three is a children’s book (ages 4-8) written in 2005 by Justin Richardson, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in New York, and Peter Parnell, a playwright (The Cider House Rules). The story is based on true events about a couple of chinstrap penguins living in New […]
According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, at least 46 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century have been the target of ban attempts. Over the past decade, American libraries were faced with 4400 challenges. 1,413 challenges due to “sexually explicit” material; 1,125 challenges due […]
My friend over at the Graubner library in Romeo, Michigan just emailed me a copy of the American Library Association’s “Library Bill of Rights”. I had emailed him about the Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge project and here is part of what he said to me: “In regards […]
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