It’s Banned Book Week, celebrating classic and popular novels, to protest restricting public access to well-written books providing knowledge, information and diverse perspectives.
Library systems are making banned books available free, online, in digital versions, and bookstores are featuring special sections of banned books.
The New York Public Library is offering unlimited electronic copies two of Toni Morrison’s books – The Bluest Eye and Beloved — both frequently censored by school systems and municipal libraries, according to the NYPL.
The virtual copies will be available through Oct. 31, not just during Banned Book Week in September.
Just download the NYPL free e-reader app, SimplyE.
Despite frequent calls to ban her books in schools and libraries, Morrison, wrote 11 novels, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Nobel Prize in Literature, the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and spent five decades teaching, editing, supporting up-and-coming writers, and publishing plays, children’s titles, essays and more.
She was also an activist against censorship.
Certainly a voice worth listening to, despite what the book banners think.
The top banned and challenged books, according to Barnes & Noble include:
- “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury
- “Maus” by Art Spiegelman
- “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
- “1984 by George Orwell”
- “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
- “Animal Farm” by George Orwell
- “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck
- “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas
- “Stamped from the Beginning” by Ibram X. Kendi
- “The 1619 Project” by Nikole Hannah-Jones
- “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut
Download the NYPL Banned Books list.
Link to the Barnes & Noble Banned Book page.
The irony is that many banned and challenged books have been turned into films by famous and respected producers including Oprah Winfrey and others into well-regarded stage shows, including one now performing on Broadway (The Kite Runner).
Some banned books – such as To Kill a Mockingbird – have been made into both Hollywood films and Broadway plays, and have had a profound and positive influence on generations of readers and viewers.
Banned Books Reading List: Stand for the Right to Read Freely
Check out this list of banned books for all ages that have been banned or challenged in schools and libraries across the country.
From classic titles like The Color Purple and Slaughterhouse-Five to more recent targets like Hurricane Child, discover voices and perspectives censorship threatens to erase.
Some banned books have been turned into films by famous and respected producers including Oprah Winfrey and others into well-regarded stage shows, including one now performing on Broadway (The Kite Runner).
Some banned books – such as To Kill a Mockingbird – have been made into both Hollywood films and Broadway plays, and have had a profound and positive influence on generations of readers and viewers.
The list was assembled by the experts at NYPL, in conjunction with the American Library Association.
Download the Banned Books list.
Link to the Barnes & Noble Banned Book page.
ecoXplorer Evelyn Kanter is a journalist with 20+ years of experience as a newspaper and magazine writer, radio & TV news producer & reporter, and guidebook and smartphone app author – all focusing on travel, automotive, the environment and your rights as a consumer.I’m the proud author of several books, and the editor of many more. None of them have been banned – so far.
Contact me at evelyn@ecoxplorer.com.
Also follow my NYC website, NYC Travel Guru
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