Brighton Library Participates in National Banned Books Week

joins hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country in drawing attention to the problem of censorship with its display for Banned Books Week.

Banned Books Week is held the last week of September every year. There have been more than 11,000 books challenged since 1982, when Banned Books Week first began, according to the American Library Association (ALA).

At least 46 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century have been the target of ban attempts, according to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, where challenges to books are reported.

Here are a few of the challenged classics, according to the ALA:

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, challenged in 1987 at Baptist College, Charleston, SC, because of language and sexual references.
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, has been challenged numerous times from 1960 to 2009 and removed from many school libraries and reading lists for vulgarity, sexual references, immorality and more.
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, was burned by the East St. Louis Public Library in Illinois and barred from the Buffalo New York Public Library in 1939 for vulgarity. The book was also banned from Ireland in 1953 and has since been challenged and removed from many school libraries and reading lists due to profanity and sexual references.
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, has been challenged and removed from many school libraries and reading lists from 1977 to 2009 due to adult themes, racial slurs and more.
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, was challenged at Saginaw public libraries in 1989 and removed from school libraries and reading lists from 1984 to 2008 due to profanity, sexual references and more.

For a list of all 46 challenged books, visit ALA's Banned and Challenged Classics online.

Check the Brighton District Library's website to see if books are available for checkout or call the library at 810-229-6571.