“Books and ideas are the most effective weapons against intolerance and ignorance”
– Lyndon Baines Johnson
Why are we celebrating Banned Books Week?
Every year libraries across the United States celebrate our freedom to read. And by freedom to read—we mean anything.
There are people in the world who read books and think that they are vulgar, inappropriate, and that they should be banned - completely removed from shelves where anyone can read them.
Imagine a world where all books in the library were pulled off the shelves because they offended someone… we wouldn’t have any books left!
When we celebrate Banned Books Week - we are not only celebrating and highlighting books that have been banned in various libraries - but also books that have been challenged and remained available to be read. A challenged book is one that someone has had an issue with and formally puts in writing that they wish that book to be removed from the shelves. The book and challenge are then evaluated by the library and the library board to determine if the book should indeed be removed from the shelves, or if it should stay in the collection. Most often, the books are returned to the shelves. In the very rare cases when the book is not - it is then considered banned.