If you want to get me fired up, try telling me you want to ban a book! That will do it in record time. Zero to sixty in less than a second. The right to express ideas and opinions is most basic to the First Amendment, no matter how much you agree with an idea or how much you despise it.
This week, September 27 through October 4, 2008, is Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read. This annual American Library Association event is intended to remind us as Americans,
"...not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted...BBW (Banned Books Week) 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 unpopular or unorthodox viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met."
According to the American Library Association, the most challenged books of 2007 include, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain; The Color Purple, by Alice Walker; and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou.
If you'd like more information on Banned Books Week and the most challenged books, as well as challenged authors, you can visit the American Library Association.
"If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable." ~ Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in Texas v. Johnson.
