Ferndale Public Library Honors Banned Books Week

(Crystal A. Proxmire, Sept. 29, 2013)

Ferndale Public Library Circulation Specialist Lindsey Harnish does something that some might consider scandalous.  She reads.

Throughout history, governments, schools and churches have tried to control society by banning books.  These books are celebrated by those who do not believe in censorship, hence the annual Banned Books week that took place Sept. 22-28 across the country.

Harnish was among those who participated in the Ferndale Public Library’s Banned Books Week celebration. She had her mug shot taken on a wall set up to look like a police booking area, holding a sign that said “caught reading banned books.”

“My favorite banned book is Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak,” Harnish said.  “It’s such a delightful and imaginative tale with such fun illustrations, that my love for it has only increased through the years. Considered to be ‘dark and disturbing’ by parents, critics and psychologists, the book was thought to do everything from glorify bad behavior to promoting witchcraft. Even before it was published, it was controversial and Sendak had to battle with his publishers for a few years before it was released.

“I believe the best art is that which helps us to best recognize our human condition—the gorgeousness and ugliness and the banal—and make it somehow a wonder of an experience, even as it is challenging. To me, Where the Wild Things Are does this beautifully and the book never ages.”

Others who took part were shot holding books like Fight Club, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Slaughterhouse Five and others.

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982. For more information on Banned Books Week, click here. According to the American Library Association, there were 464 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2012, and many more go unreported.

Jordan Wright has a clear favorite.  “Without a question, my favorite banned book is Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.  Since its initial publication in 1859, this book has been one of the most hotly contested pieces of literature that I can think of.  Due to the outrage that the book incited immediately after its publication, Darwin even chose to water down some of its language in subsequent editions (the first edition is still the best).  Unfortunately, the fight’s not over yet.  Even today, school boards in certain parts of the country are still contesting the use of this book in the classroom, even though the evidence supporting Darwin’s theory has never been stronger,” Wright said.

For Jeff Milo, the choice is more difficult.  “It’s a tie between Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut) and Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury). These two authors often toggle between owning the title of my Favorite Author of All Time and it’s mostly due to their (quite divergent and comparably distinctive) narrative voices – no one whips around an adjective laden, sensory thunderstorm like Bradbury whilst no one else drops down the most blunt, beautifully terse, minimalist post-apocalyptic poetry like Vonnegut. Bradbury’s work is a warning to a society disregarding the value of the written word and the impact of a good book, while Vonnegut defies the trumped up delusions of heroism, when it comes face to face with the surreal horrors of war and the soldier’s experience.”

Wikipedia has a long list of banned books at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments, while the American Library Association has many resources for discussing and learning about banned books on their website at http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/.

For more on the Ferndale Public Library, go to http://www.ferndale.lib.mi.us/.