Banned Books Week (September 29-October 6) Celebrates the Freedom to Read

Banned Books Week is September 29-October 6 an event celebrated during the last week of September. This event started in 1982 to remind Americans "not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted", as explained on to the American Library Association website (www.ala.org). Specifically, it concerns the freedom to choose one's own reading material and to be able to express one's own opinion or access another's opinion or idea, i.e. intellectual freedom.

The ALA sponsors the week along with American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of American Publishers, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the National Association of College Stores.

According to the ALA, a challenge is "an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group" while "a banning is the removal of those materials". While the ALA does note that most books are banned or challenged with good intentions, it promotes censorship and prohibits intellectual freedom. "Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others," the website explains.

Certain examples of banned and challenged books come without surprise; Mein Kampf is a banned book, as is The Anarchist Cookbook. Other choices for banned and challenged books can surprise readers - The Wizard of Oz, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Call of the Wild, and The Diary of Anne Frank are a few examples. Some of the world's most beloved and cherished books are frequently banned and challenged, whether they are fiction, nonfiction, adult or children's books.