Banned Books Week is upon us. This year, it runs from September 22 – 28. I’ve loved this week-long celebration as if it were Thanksgiving since I was in high school.
On the Monday of this most joyous of weeks, my favorite teacher would wear a sweatshirt that declared “Celebrate Freedom! Read a Banned Book!” And in small print under the headline, was a list of all the books that had been banned (so far). Books included:
- The Bible
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- 1984
- The Catcher in the Rye
- Shakespeare’s plays, including Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, and The Merchant of Venice
All classic masterpieces of English-language literature. All books that allow us to expand our experiences by allowing us to live ever so briefly in the mind of someone not like us.
In the last two years, most of the books being added to the Banned are books told from a LGBTQA+ view point or are stories that challenge the ideals of the status quo. Having your status quo questioned can be scary, but even scarier is living in a world that lacks empathy and kindness. A world where no one is willing to take a walk in your shoes.
I encourage you to take a walk on the scary side. Read a Banned Book. Here are 5 of my favorites:
One of my favorite books – easily in my top 10. Viv Carter starts are someone just trying to stay under the radar of the boys on the football team who harass the girls of her school. She discovers the mementos of her mother’s 1990s Riot Grrl life and begins an anonymous Zine that finally tells the truth about life inside the wall of their high school and starts a Girl Power Revolution.
Brilliantly written coming of age story about being a young lesbian in 1954 San Francisco, CA. The story is so honestly and earnestly told, it’s both exactly like all those first love books I read as a teen and also nothing like them. It also discusses the Red-Scare paranoia running through Chinatown, the burden of being a first generation American, and the uncertainty of being yourself in a world where fitting in is the most important thing.
An obvious choice, but everyone should read this. Seriously. There’s at least 2 movies (Whoopi Goldberg was robbed at the Oscars) and a musical. It’s such a part of the Zeitgeist you’re doing yourself a disservice not reading it. Written as a series of letters to God and then to her sister Nettie, we follow Celie through an abusive marriage, positive female friendships, and the racism of the pre-Civil Rights South.
Another obvious classic, but given what’s happening today, a must-read. Atwood famously says in her Masterclass interview that everything this book has happened in the past somewhere in the world. Terrifying. America is under a new world order, where pregnancies are rare and young women are being subjugated into having children for the privileged upper class. Offred, our hero, first only tries to survive and then escape her fate.
Am I surprised this book is banned? No. I’m just disappointed. Of any of these books I’ve recommended this is a perfect example of a book that will expand your understanding of the lives of another. Starr lives in a poor neighborhood and goes to a fancy-pants rich prep school. Then one night she witnesses the shooting of her neighborhood friend by a cop. Only Starr knows the truth of what happened and she faces intimidation and pressure from all sides from people who want that truth to vindicate them.
The brilliant part of America is that if you don’t want to read these books, you don’t have to. You can make your own choices, because, you know, FREEDOM!
So, in a time when so many different people are taking away your choices, please Celebrate your freedom. Read a banned book.
Mindy Carlson 
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