Banned Books Week has been around since 1982 with the distinct purpose of preserving the freedom to read. For many years, books have been challenged or even banned due to controversial content. Librarians, educators, authors, and publishers regularly attempt to bring awareness to the threat to control the type of material available to read.
"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame."
"So what does the current situation with regard to cancelling/challenging books tell us about what our contemporary societies most fear?...we seem to fear ambiguity and to crave absolute certainty."
"Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear."
"Let's be clear: censorship is cowardice...It masks corruption. It is a school of torture: it teaches, and accustoms one to the use of force against an idea,...But worst still, censorship destroys criticism, which is the essential ingredient of culture."
"You have to read, you have to know, you have to have access to knowledge."
"I'm not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance."
"We change people through conversation, not through censorship."
"Censorship that comes from the outside assumes about people an inability to make reasoned choices."
"The case against censoring anything is absolute:..nothing that could be censored can be so bad in its effects, in the long run, as censorship itself."
Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, profanity, and because it was considered to be sexually explicit
Banned, challenged, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, and because it was considered to have sexually explicit images
Banned and challenged because it depicts child sexual abuse and was considered sexually explicit
Depiction of sexual abuse, LGBTQIA+ content, drug use, profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit
Depiction of sexual violence, drug use, sexual content, LGBTQ+ content
LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
Banned and challenged because it was considered sexually explicit and degrading to women
Drug use, claimed to be sexually explicit
Depiction of sexual content and assault, the theme of sex trafficking considered inappropriate for the book's audience
LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
This work by Lone Star College-University Park Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.