The American Library Association (ALA) is a wonderful organization that brings attention to many important issues and causes. Take for instance Banned Books Week. I very strongly advocate this issue because of how essential it is that society maintain unobstructed access to works of literature - ALL works of literature - and that authors are given the right to publish free of censorship.
It is also vitally important for readers to read for themselves...and what I mean by that is that social groups (e.g. parents, teachers) that speak out against books have a tendency to do so without actually having read them. Their objections are based on hearsay, second- and third-hand accounts and word of mouth. While that may be enough to persuade a person to make the individual choice to avoid a book, it is quite a different matter for a person to speak out and demand official action using only rumors and gossip as evidence. That, to me, is the height of ignorance. (To be clear, it is the glorious 1st Amendment right of free speech that allows you to speak up against that which you don't approve. Just be informed before you open your mouth.)
Here's a list of many books that have been banned and/or challenged (some may surprise you):
ALA Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century
As I was perusing this list, I was surprised to discover Orem mentioned as a place where a bookseller was arrested for selling A Clockwork Orange in 1973. I've lived in Orem my whole life and work for Orem City but have never heard the story of this incident, so I set about to do a little research.
In the online archives of the Deseret News I found only one article regarding a bookseller getting in trouble for selling an objectionable book, and it wasn't A Clockwork Orange.
Our electronic police records don't go back that far, and in order to check our archives I would need the name of the bookseller or bookshop in order to find the report. I'd like to know where the ALA got their information...I've been unable to find a source in any of the articles.
(Random note: I'm currently listening to A Clockwork Orange on cd as I commute to SLC for school. Weird.)
And here's a very long and very thoughtful blog post about freedom of speech and the CBLDF from writer extraordinnaire Neil Gaiman.
At any rate...censorship awareness. It's important and it affects you (ever checked out a book from a public library?). Happy reading.
3 comments:
I'll have to check out that list. By the way, I didn't know you were commuting to SLC for school. You should drop in some time.
Yep, I'm going to the U part-time and working towards a second bachelor's in Linguistics (and then hopefully a master's in Linguistics). I only go up twice a week, Mondays and Wednesdays after work. It's busy, but I love it!
I just wrote a post about this today! Yours is much better though, so I'll just add a 'here, here!' to your eloquence. Glad to hear you're enjoying school. :)
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