Book Bannings and Burnings in America
The ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom and others collect and publish examples from around the country in the run up to Banned Books Week. The numbers usually run in the hundreds of documented episodes. The 2007 materials have not yet been published, but now is a good time to begin to be thinking about how we can celebrate Banned Books Week. The ALA describes BBW this way: Banned Books Week - Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, the annual event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. The ALA has a list of ways to get involved and suggested activities. As does the American Booksellers Foundation which also has an online handbook for Banned Books Week. The ABFFE has downloadable PDF files of cool Banned Books Week posters that can be printed at copy shops. But just in case anyone thinks I am exaggerating or that book burnings can't happen here,, the ALA has some examples of book burnings that took place right here in the U.S. in recent years -- including a photo of members of an Assemblies of God church in Penn Township, Pennsylvania, burning books and music. The church called it a "Demon Roast." The ALA's run down of the history of book burning opens with a quote from a play by German playright, Heinrich Heine in 1821: "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." The ALA believes that there are many more episodes of burning and banning every year that they just don't hear about. In 2002 in New Mexico, a local church organized a book burning of Harry Potter and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, among others:
A display of Harry Potter books at the Alamogordo (N. Mex.) Public Library was a marked contrast to a December 30 book burning of works written by J. K. Rowling and others that took place outside the city's Christ Community Church. Held on church property after a half-hour prayer service, the event drew several hundred congregants and as many as 800 counterprotesters. So it is important to underscore that book bannings, and even occasional book burnings, do happen here in America. There are movements that whip people up into a frenzy about alleged threats from mere books that many of us would not think possible.
Libraries and independent bookstores across the country stage Banned Books Week every year. They deserve our support.
Book Bannings and Burnings in America | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)
Book Bannings and Burnings in America | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)
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