During Banned Book Week we can all take time to appreciate the importance of free thought and connecting with worlds beyond our borders.
It's important to understand that books are still banned in this accepting world of ours. They aren't just banned in cranky, conservative backwoods but at libraries and schools all over the world.
The American Library Association says there were more than 450 challenges to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2012. The 10 most challenged books included Captain Underpants, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and The Kite Runner, which were reported for their offensive language, sexual content and racism. Oh my!
Too often when people think about banned books, they picture a book burning through a veil of grainy black and white images or video. The banning of books is regularly thought of as a period in our history when people were just ill informed, uneducated or terrified of new ideas. Our world is chock full of intelligent, forward thinking and reasonable people, but that hasn't led to a culture of complete openness when it comes to our literature.
The banning of books has ultimately led to some great things for humanity, the same way oppression has. It is struggles like these that allow us to do some pretty incredible things.
Without banned books we wouldn't have Fahrenheit 451, a book about banning books that was also banned.
We still need writers who push the boundaries of acceptable content so we can continue to grow more open and connected with the world.
What we really need to support, or continue to support, is our local libraries. The literary world is so important for so many reasons, and our libraries give us access to all these books and ideas for free.
Sure, they aren't free. Our taxes go to libraries, but that gives everyone one more reason to make regular stops in the library. If you don't do it because you love and appreciate books, at least do it out of spite. If Big Government is going to take your money and invest it in a dome of cultural wonder, you might as well take advantage of all the wonder inside.
Libraries represent a world of inexpensive, easy and available education. It's important for people to step outside of their intellectual bounds and experience something new. If you want to know what it's like to grow up in Iran following the Islamic Revolution, read Persepolis. It has been banned, so it must be great.
That's one of the best things about literature. It allows us to see a perspective and a side of the world we may never get to experience otherwise. I don't know about you, but I didn't grow up in Iran during that period.
It's libraries that make it so easy for us to experience what the world is like for other people, whether those people are fictional characters or people from our history.
Libraries allow us to open our minds and understand our world a little better, but that only happens if we support the free flow of thought and those books that contain all the great ideas we need to know about.
