What is a Banned Book?
As long as books have been with us they continue to be banned or challenged in every country in the world. The motivations for banning books are varied the one common denominator in all bannings is the desire to silence speech and thought. Reasons are often illogical. Thousands of books were burned in Nazi Germany for contradicting the politics of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Authors around the globe have been attacked, arrested, exiled, or died at the hands of governments and leaders afraid their words would awaken complacent citizens. Books are challenged and banned in schools and libraries for fear students be exposed to realities and language outside the community ideology. A great deal of the time of those who seek to ban books have not actually read the books in question, they are simply jumping on the bandwagon of the opposition group.
A banned book is a book that may be removed from a library; not allowed to be published; not allowed to enter a certain country; not allowed to exist physically destroyed, (ex: book burning in Nazi Germany); or a book whose author has been threatened with death or put to death, ex. during medieval-era Inquisitions and ias recently as 1988, Salman Rushdie for his book "Satanic Verses.")
The call to ban a book comes from a wide variety of different groups and individuals all around the world. Although on a surface level they seem to represent a wide specturm of cultures and beliefs the common denominator is each in their own way functions from a fixed mindset. Their desire is to suppress books and materials that deviate from their perceptions of the world and conflict with their beliefs.
By far the most common group wishing to ban books and other materials are parents. According to the American Library Association, libraries were faced with 4,659 challenges between 2001 and 2010. Currently the rate of reported challenges is between 300 and 400 books per year. Parents challenge books with the best of intentions which as they see it is to protect their children, but its important to remember that parents have the right to restrict their own children from reading a certain book, but they do not have the right to restrict other people's children from reading it.
According to : "Common Reasons for Banning Books," Fort Lewis College, John F. Reed Library. Banned Books, Censorship & Free Speech. (November 15, 2013), the most common reasons for challenging a book include:
Racial Issues: About and/or encouraging racism towards one or more group of people.
Encouragement of "Damaging" Lifestyles: Content of book encourages lifestyle choices that are not of the norm or could be considered dangerous or damaging. This could include drug use, co-habitation without marriage, or homosexuality.
Blasphemous Dialog: The author of the book uses words such as "God" or "Jesus" as profanity. This could also include any use of profanity or swear words within the text that any reader might find offensive.
Sexual Situations or Dialog: Many books with content that include sexual situations or dialog are banned or censored.
Violence or Negativity: Books with content that include violence are often banned or censored. Some books have also been deemed too negative or depressing and have been banned or censored as well.
Presence of Witchcraft: Books that include magic or witchcraft themes. A common example of these types of books are J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series.
Religious Affiliations (unpopular religions): Books have been banned or censored due to an unpopular religious views or opinions in the content of the book. This is most commonly related to satanic or witchcraft themes found in the book. Although, many books have also been banned or censored for any religious views in general that might not coincide with the public view.
Political Bias: Most Commonly occurs when books support or examine extreme political parties/philosophies such as: fascism, communism, anarchism, etc.
Age Inappropriate: These books have been banned or censored due to their content and the age level at which they are aimed. In some cases children's books are viewed to have "inappropriate" themes for the age level at which they are written for.
Many books have been banned or censored in one or more of these categories due to a misjudgment or misunderstanding about the books contents and message. Although a book may have been banned or labeled a certain way, it is important that the reader makes his/her own judgements on the book. Many books that have been banned or censored later were dropped from banned books lists and were no longer considered controversial. For this reason, banned books week occurs yearly to give readers a chance to revisit past or recently banned books to encourage a fresh look into the controversies the books faced.
"Free societies ... are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence." -- Salmon Rushdie