As the character Scout Finch said in Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from 1960: "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."
Scout was saying that reading is something people take for granted, like breathing. As we assume the air will always be here for us, so we assume that books will always be here. Not so.
The American Library Association declared annual Banned Book Week in 1982, and we celebrate by reading books that have been challenged or banned. Every week, there there is mention in the news of a person or group of people who want this or that book removed from library shelves for one reason or another. Do you want other people to decide what you are or aren't allowed to read?
This is just a very small list of the books that have been banned or challenged in the past:
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Beloved by Toni Morrison
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Little Women by Lousia May Alcott
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradburg
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The list goes on and on . . . and on . . . Be a rebel! Support your right to FREADOM! Read a banned book!
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