Letters from NYC

Banned Books Week!

From now until October 1st, booksellers, librarians, authors, readers, students and bibliophiles who support freedom of expression, will participate in a nationwide event called Banned Books Week.

It was started in 1982 by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers and the National Association of College Stores to raise awareness of censorship problems in the United States and abroad. For the past 22 years, it has remained the only national celebration of the freedom to read.

Book banning is nothing new. Dante's The Divine Comedy was burned in 1497 on religious grounds. Queen Elizabeth censored parts of Shakespeare's Tragedy of King Richard II in 1597. Jean Jacques Rosseau’s philosophical work was placed on the Roman Catholic Church’s Index of Prohibited Works in the 18th century.

Visit the American Booksellers Foundation or the American Library Association to view their lists of Banned and Challenged Books of 2004/5 and see if your favorite author is listed. In reviewing the list I could not believe that some of my favorite author's were banned or challenged. Off the list this year, but on the list for several years past is "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain.

Buy/read a banned book in order to safe guard the intellectual freedom of our future generations. I wonder what Bou's sons would say if they knew that the Captain Underpants Series and "To Kill a Mockingbird" are banned books in some places across the US.