Get Caught Reading a Banned Book

This year’s Banned Books Week celebration of the freedom to read, organized since 1982 by a coalition including the American Library Association (ALA), the American Booksellers Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, is September 24-30. This event highlights the need for free access to information and ideas without censorship regardless of personal views. From “A Brave New World” to “Harry Potter” to the Bible, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom reports the books are challenged, censored and banned every year.

To raise awareness of the effects of censorship on communities, the Ridgefield Library is featuring an interactive “Get Caught Reading a Banned Book” display. Patrons may take a selfie, or pose for a photo in front of a “mugshot” backdrop with a favorite challenged or banned book. Check our displays or browse banned book lists at our service desk to help make a selection – you may be surprised at some of the titles on the list. The Library encourages patrons and visitors to share their images on social media with the hashtags: #rebelreader and #ireadbannedbooks.

Contributed by Kristina Lareau, Head of Children's Services

Challenging Reading

What books are in your Top Ten?  If your list includes “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” or John Green’s “Looking for Alaska,” you may be surprised to learn that these titles are also on the list of books challenged, restricted, removed or banned in schools and libraries in 2015-2016, according to the American Library Association (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom.  You will find these and many others this week in our display in observance of Banned Books Week 2016.  Each year, along with the ALA, the Association of American Publishers, American Booksellers for Free Expression, the National Council of Teachers of English and other organizations, we use this occasion to celebrate the right to explore ideas and to express ourselves freely without censorship.

Since the first Banned Books Week event in 1982, many thousands of titles have been challenged, including those by 21 Nobel laureates and winners of nearly every literary prize.  They include children’s picture books and beginning readers; young adult titles; classic as well as contemporary adult fiction; science, memoir and other non-fiction; graphic novels and poetry. Stop by this week, pick up a displayed book and stand up for your right to read.