By Keira Sanders
Banned Book Week is an annual event that highlights the importance of books and why we need free and open access to them. Not only does it bring awareness, but it celebrates the freedom to read. The event brings together the entire book community, which includes librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types. The theme for this year was “Let Freedom Read” which captures what’s at stake: that the safety of our right to speak and think freely is fitting to our rights to read.
Banned Book Week was launched in 1982, when there was a sudden rush of books being challenged for their spots in libraries, bookstores, and schools. It was founded by library Activist Judith Krug, who led the campaign by libraries against efforts to ban books. According to Amnesty International USA, Krug said the Association of American Publishers contacted her with ideas to bring banned books “to the attention of the American public” after a “slew of books” had been banned that year.
October 1 – 7 was this year’s Banned Book Week, and teachers and staff of El Diamante High School made sure people were aware. Many wore t-shirts on Monday and had posters up in classrooms to show their alliance with the annual campaign.
To get further opinions and insight on this week, I went around campus and asked a few teachers how they felt about Banned Books and the week that correlates to them.
When asked if there are any valid reasons on banning books, our school Librarian Ms. Blakely responded with “Personally, I [don’t like books] with content that isn’t appropriate… extreme violence, gore, and sexual content.” Many people have specific and strong feelings on the topic of banning books.
However, Blakely also added, “I feel it is taking another step closer to taking some freedoms away.” She also goes on to say that she is “not a fan of banning books.”
To get further insight and opinions on Banned Book Week, I decided to interview our AP English Language teacher, Mrs. Perez.
“I think that often times, the books that get censored or banned, are books that show things about other cultures, or under-represented people…”
Perez commented on how banning books affects students, “Often times I think that’s how students learn empathy…”
When questioned if she believed there were any benefits to banning books, Mrs. Perez replied with “I don’t.”
She adds on with clarifying that there are books she wouldn’t personally put on her shelves due to content and age restrictions, but concluded her statement with “…high school students are exposed to a lot of things in their lives, and it’s nice for them to get to see their lives represented.”