Memphis Reads Archive

CELEBRATE THE FREEDOM TO READ!

It's time once again to celebrate Banned Books Week, an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA).

As explained on that organization's website, "Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted....BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met."

Resources: (in order by date added)

• ALA's Banned Books Week website
  
• Learn how the list of most challenged books is tabulated
  
• Suggested Activities from ALA
  
• Google has also created a page that highlights a selection of challenged books
  
• Banned Books Online presented by the University of Pennsylvania's "Online Books Page"
  
• Amnesty International presentation about "the plight of individuals who are persecuted because of the writings that they produce, circulate or read"
  
• Shakespeare Censored! An online exhibition from the Occidental College Library

Local Events:

• Recent Commercial Appeal article with information about University of Memphis events
  
• THE BIG READ, a program sponsored by Rhodes College and numerous community partners including the Memphis Public Library, features To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. This title has been frequently challenged.

Learn More @ Your Library:

• Displays of banned or challenged books help us to visualize what's at stake. View the displays (and check out the featured titles) at several Library locations including Cordova, Poplar-White Station and South Branch Libraries
  
• Check out titles about challenged or prohibited books and censorship
  

D. Matthews, South Branch Library, contributed to this post.