If you wander into your local bookstore or library within the next week, it’s likely you will see a shrine of sorts to banned books. Those who ban books work to lock up particular controversial writing from readers, but an equally as strong and passionate force works to keep these books freely available. Enter: Banned Books Week.
Banned Books Week is held during the last week of September in order to bring light to banned and challenged books. This week serves to celebrate the freedom to read what you want and to continue in a forceful march to keep writing available to all of the public. So, from September 26 to October 3, there will be efforts all over the country to bring banned books to the forefront–to showcase them as worthy, safe, and accessible works.
Internet Archive offers a collection of banned books in this collection to get you ready for the week. Some of the most famous banned books are highlighted below:
The Fairy Tales of Brothers Grimm
The Jungle
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
O Pioneers!
Black Beauty
The War of the Worlds
Read through these classics and crack your Ginsberg, Rowling, Nabakov, or Steinbeck this week. Celebrate your freedom to read, because unfortunately some of our best writers have been sanctioned to book prison.
–Cara Binder
