What do Dr. Seuss, Alice in Wonderland, Mother Goose, Where the Wild Things Grow and even Where’s Waldo all have in common?
Yes, all are intended for young audiences. But what most people don’t know is each one of those books was, at one point, banned.
From Sept. 27 to Oct. 3, several local bookstores are celebrating Banned Book Week with the intention of bringing awareness to the long history of censorship, and remind readers the fight for freedom of speech is still going on today.
“We’re a free country, and that’s the message we’re trying to get across,” Kevin Johnson, a bookseller at Maria’s Bookshop, said. “We can read and write whatever we want, but sometimes people use their freedom to try to restrict other people’s freedom.”
Banned books and censorship have long occurred throughout history. Socrates in 399 B.C. was forced to drink poison for corrupting the youth through his writing. And just last year, Sherman Alexie’s The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was the most challenged book to take off the shelves of the year.
The focus of this year’s Banned Book Week, which was founded in 1982, is the censorship of young adult fiction. Johnson said books intended for that age demographic are among the most restricted of genres.
“And that’s because it’s a time period kids branch out, and read on their own,” he said. “But parents and some community members still feel values instilled in the direction they want should be encouraged. But everyone should be able to pursue their own interest, as well as develop their own sense of self.”
Johnson said it’s that “coming of age” dynamic that makes an older generation uneasy. Very recently, books can talk about real issues – drugs, sex, depression, suicide – openly. And that can conflict with a variety of religious and societal values.
“Books are usually banned based upon philosophy,” he said.
Todd Macon, a former high school teacher who currently works at Mountain Middle School, said he’s made a point of teaching banned books. Literature is meant to challenge our sense of society, he said, because sometimes society challenges our sense of humanity.
“Literature brings us back to that always,” he said. “It’s the check-and-balance for culture. Art is the same way, and our greatest literary figures are there to challenge our society when it lost sense of our humanity.”
Commonly banned high school books include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill A Mockingbird, Catch-22, Fahrenheit 451 and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
It’s these books that are featured at Maria’s Bookshop, as well as White Rabbit Books & Curiosities, until Oct. 3 in honor of the weeklong event. But it’s not just children’s books that are featured this week. Everything from picture books to academic works has met resistance throughout the years, and Johnson said just about every category has a book banned.
At Maria’s, books are labeled as banned, and a small postcard offers a reason why it was censored and when. All this week, literature enthusiasts are invited to stop by the store and read a five to 10 minute excerpt from a banned book of their choosing.
Johnson said 10 a.m. on Saturday, a reading group from Durango High School will visit the store to read from banned books, as well as discuss censorship throughout the years.
Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Library Association.
And for those interested on why Where’s Waldo was banned at one time: Apparently there were images of naked beachgoers, homosexual lovers and characters holding up the hail Satan sign.
As a result, the book was removed from several schools and libraries, and was on the ALA’s Top 100 Banned Books for the majority of the 1990s.
jromeo@durangoherald.com
