This week, from September 18 through September 24of 2022 is National Banned Books Week. Book banning and censorship is a crucial issue that should unite readers and writers. Throughout the world and humanity’s history, governments, churches, and other institutions have banned or attempted to ban and censor books.
Most of us are familiar with the images from Nazi Germany in which thousands of books were burned by the Fascists. All banning, however, is not so explicit. Sometimes in the United States of America, books are challenged, especially in the context of not being allowed to be taught in the classroom.
I oppose all such censorship. As a writer, it is an obscenity; as a teacher, it is an imposition of chosen ignorance; as a reader, it is an intolerable abomination. We must unite and oppose book banning, in all of its forms.
Fight for your freedom to choose what to read.
Here are several important links about this issue:
Banned Books Week
American Library Association
I will later, this week, in honor of this important cause put out another call for readers to become part of my unofficial group that opposes censorship–The Underground Library Society, The U. L. S.
In the meantime, I ask all of you this question: what is a book that has been banned or challenged that you love?
I choose To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
charles french words reading and writing 