Freedom to read
At Monday’s City Council meeting, Councilwoman Tess Albin-Smith presented to the Fort Bragg Library a proclamation of September 26 — October 2 as Banned Books Week, recognizing the library’s role in combating censorship.
Launched in 1982, the American Library Association (ALA) launched Banned Books Week in response to the surge of book challenges in schools, libraries, and bookstores. (Visit their website at ala. org for the current Top 10 Most Challenged Books Lists.) This year’s theme is “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.”
Excerpts from the City’s proclamation: “…freedom to read is essential to our democracy…right to open inquiry without having the subject of one’s interest examined or scrutinized by others…every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of American society and leaves it less able to deal with controversy and difference…Americans still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression, and can be trusted to exercise critical judgment, to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe, and to exercise the responsibilities that accompany this freedom…intellectual freedom is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture…conformity limits the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend…”
Staff at the Fort Bragg Library shared their favorite banned books:
Kim Doyle: “The Harry Potter Series — It’s a funny, complicated world with memorable characters.”
John Teller: “Flowers for Algernon — Do the book banners not believe in hope? Let us decide for ourselves what to read.”
Amie McGee: “To Kill a Mockingbird — Even as a kid, I was shocked by the injustices and hatred of anything different. ‘Hey, Boo’ will always be in my mind as the moment I really saw things.”
Jennifer Johnson: “Persepolis’ by Marjane Satrapi — It’s important to know about the injustices people face in other countries (Iran) so we can learn from those mistakes and understand where people come from.”
Peggy McGee: “The Diary of Anne Frank — It was banned because it was too depressing or sad. I read this book when I was ten. It was a fascinating read and I learned a lot about the horrors of genocide and man’s inhumanity to man through the eyes of someone near my own age. It stuck with me all these years.”
Dan Hess: “The Kite Runner — Americans condemn its brutality and bad language. Afghanis blame the author for shaming their country. Yet the book takes us right to the heart of violence and shows us how to heal.”
Exercise your freedom to read by visiting the Fort Bragg Library and/or The Bookstore and Vinyl Café (both are located on Laurel Avenue).