This week is Banned Books Week, a week when authors, readers, publishers, librarians, and book lovers all over the country celebrate the importance of books, the ideas they convey, and the potential they have to change the world. This is also a week to remind us that while we here in the United States enjoy a general freedom from censorship, it’s not as “free” as we might think. Hundreds of books are still banned from schools and libraries all over the country… Books that many of us consider beloved classics! 

We avid readers and book-lovers are generally appalled at the idea that anyone would try to dictate our reading lists, but today I want to look at what the authors themselves have to say about their books being banned. Is it a humiliation? Is it a badge of honor? Or is it a great disappointment, and sadness for those from whom the book was censored?

Lois Lowry on the censorship in various school districts of her novel The Giver (from Banned Books Awareness):

“I think banning books is a very, very dangerous thing. It takes away an important freedom. Any time there is an attempt to ban a book, you should fight it as hard as you can. It’s okay for a parent to say, ‘I don’t want my child to read this book.’ But it is not okay for anyone to try to make that decision for other people. The world portrayed in The Giver is a world where choice has been taken away. It is a frightening world. Let’s work hard to keep it from truly happening.”

Judy Blume on censorship (From judyblume.com):

“I believe that censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children’s lives. This fear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe that if their children don’t read about it, their children won’t know about it. And if they don’t know about it, it won’t happen.

Censors don’t want children exposed to ideas different from their own. If every individual with an agenda had his/her way, the shelves in the school library would be close to empty. I wish the censors could read the letters kids write.

Dear Judy,
I don’t know where I stand in the world. I don’t know who I am.
That’s why I read, to find myself.
Elizabeth, age 13

But it’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.”

Rainbow Rowell on her novel Eleanor & Park being removed from a library in the Anoka-Hennepin school district in Minnesota, and her visit to the area schools & library cancelled (From The Toast):

“When this all happened I was really upset by it. Because the characters are so close to my heart, and everything about this [censorship] campaign deliberately misses the point of Eleanor and Park’s story…Eleanor & Park isn’t some dystopian fantasy about a world where teenagers swear and are cruel to each other, and some kids have terrible parents. Teenagers swear and are cruel to each other. Some kids have terrible parents. Some girls have terrible stepdads who shout profanity at them and call them sluts – and some of those girls still manage to rise above it.

When these people call Eleanor & Park an obscene story, I feel like they’re saying that rising above your situation isn’t possible. That if you grow up in an ugly situation, your story isn’t even fit for good people’s ears. That ugly things cancel out everything beautiful.”

Phillip Pullman, author of the frequently banned His Dark Materials trilogy, on censorship (From boingboing.net):

“Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read.”

And it seems appropriate to end with Dav Pilkey, author of the frequently challenged/banned Captain Underpants series, who responds to censorship with yet more fantastic–and apparently fear-inducing–artwork (From bannedbooksweek.org)

What are YOUR thoughts on censorship and book banning? Even better, what are YOUR favorite banned books? Share your answers in the comments.

As the Reading Rainbow Mom, Jenni Buchanan enjoys encouraging readers of ALL ages to believe that they can “go anywhere, be anything.” See more of Jenni’s blogs and tips for parents about children’s reading by subscribing to the Reading Rainbow Blog, or follow her on Twitter.