Banned Book Week

It's Banned Book Week, which this year will last more than a week. The 2008 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 27 through October 4. Here are some of the books that are on the lists of banned books:

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
3. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
4. Forever by Judy Blume
5. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
6. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
7. “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
8. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
9. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
10. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
11. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
12. Blubber by Judy Blume
13. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
14. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
15. Deenie by Judy Blume
16. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
17. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
18. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
19. Cujo by Stephen King
20. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
21. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
22. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
23. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
24. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
25. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
26. Carrie by Stephen King
27. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
28. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
29. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
30. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
31. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman

These are either books I've read (in red) or heard about, or authors of note.

I don't much care for censorship in any of its forms, on television, at the movies, in schools or public libraries or newspapers and magazines. Often the reason for removing a book from public library shelves is that we must protect our children. Bullshit. People who want Harry Potter:fill in your favorite volume here, or The Golden Compass banned wish to keep views that don't fit their narrow religious criteria from showing others that there are ideas that compete with their own.

Too bad.

What makes this nation work, when it works, is the free exchange of ideas. I think an awful lot of Christian ideas are pure crap, but I also support their Constitutionally given right to express those ideas. I also support the Constitutional rights of non-Christians to point out why they are crap to begin with.

Now I think it's time to read a banned book. I have many of them on my book shelves. I'm currently reading Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. I have to admit that I have not read it before. I will probably make some comments about it when I am done.

So go forth and read a book. It doesn't even have to be banned.