It’s the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, and the Guardian has up a little quiz to test your knowledge concerning book censorship. The ALA has also updated its challenged books list with 2007 records here, which is always an interesting (if horrifying) read.
Of course we don’t believe in banning books. The one single book my mother ever tried to stop me from reading (because it wasn’t age-appropriate), I read anyway, and really didn’t enjoy (because it wasn’t age-appropriate). It didn’t permanently scar me. No book ever has. A lot of books have opened my mind though, and a lot of books have challenged me to think. Today, I am the sum of both my experiences and the books I have read over the last thirty-odd years (and there’s a lot of them).
I personally think that people who try to have books removed from libraries aren’t really afraid that someone will be exposed to what they consider “objectionable” content. They’re really afraid that after someone is exposed to that “objectionable” content, they might think and read more and draw their own conclusions as to what to believe and feel, rather than what they’re told to think and believe and feel about any given subject. That’s the real danger of books after all: they broaden the mind.