Banned Books Week (September 26 to October 2) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Every year, our library (as well as many libraries and schools throughout the country) promote this important event with a “Banned Books Week” display. Often, we get questions about what that means: why is the Bible on a Banned Book Display? Why Good Night Moon? What gets banned? Who’s doing that?

For some, book censorship seems a thing of the past, an anachronistic, Fahrenheit 451 menace no longer relevant today. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Every year the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracks materials that community members have demanded be removed from public and school libraries. In 2020, there were 156 challenges, though, fortunately, the majority of these items remained in libraries due to the support of librarians, educators and parents who stood up for intellectual freedom.

What kinds of reading materials do community members try to ban? The American Library Association lists each year’s most challenged items and it’s a fascinating look through the history of our country’s changing social mores. (https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/ banned-books-qa)

Below is a list of the 10 most frequently challenged books in the United States in 2020. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the most challenged book of the decade. For a long time, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain held that dubious honor. What can we learn, as a society, from the desire to censor certain books and ideas?

George by Alex Gino

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part- Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard, illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Sometimes at the library, parents approach us with questions regarding what books would be most appropriate for their children. We love this question, though the answer, if there is one, is not easy. How can parents know what, in a book, is going to spark, disturb or traumatize? Books are whole creatures, and multi-faceted.

Discussion of LGBTQ issues may be met with a shrug, but an account of an earthworm squished under a boot may be the stuff of nightmares. That’s why books should never be censored. One person’s nightmare is another person’s needed learning experience. A popular adage in libraryland is that a great library is one that has something in it to offend everyone. Diversity of views is something we work hard to celebrate here at NCL. Books should be both “mirrors and windows,” to worlds both interior and exterior.

The Nederland Community Library calls attention to Banned Books Week not, as some might speculate, for sensationalism, but to keep the subject in the forefront, to avoid backroom bans that happen in some communities, and to encourage patrons to think about their rights and the rights of their community.

Swing by the library and check out one of our “banned books” on display, or write us a quick email at nederlandlibrary@nedlib.org and let us know one of your favourite banned books. Often, they are the books that change people’s lives. (You’ll earn yourself some library merchandise in the process!)

The Nederland Community Library is located at 200 N Hwy 72, Nederland, CO 80466. For additional infomration check out https://nederland.colibraries.org/.