National Banned Books Week

The last week in September is Banned Books Week, a holiday instituted by the American Library Association in 1982. The week long commemoration highlights censorship as well as some of the challenges that have been issued to libraries across the county to restrict access to certain books.

It's hard to believe that censorship still exists, but it does. In 1982, when the holiday started, "Hundreds of books were being removed from shelves in any given year," notes Judith F. King, director of the Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom. "Last year 40 books were removed in some library somewhere in the United States."

Now you probably thought I was going to suggest that some of these books might have been taken off the shelves in Alaska, but I'm not. Instead I'm going to let you know what some of the most "controversial" titles are:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Beloved by Toni Morrison
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

Reasons for the challenges include language (profanity), nudity (In the Night Kitchen has a naked little boy), sexually explicit scenes (this includes Maya Angelou's work--you might remember her as the poet who wrote a moving commemoration for Bill Clinton's inauguration), and violence.

Regardless of your personal tastes, in a free society we should respect the free expression of ideas. If you don't like a book, you don't have to read it. But someone else can.

We don't all have to listen to punk rock or hip hop, but that doesn't mean that those recordings shouldn't be available to those who like the sound.

Check out your local library this week. Chances are there will be some sort of display indicating which books in their collection have been challenged. You might be surprised.