Willow Glen Resident
Letters & Opinions
Banned Books Week: Pick one up and read
By Moryt Milo
Piles of books are removed from a home and dumped in the street. They are thrown haphazardly into a stack like wood for a fire. The mound turns into a heap of classics piled on top of biographies, poetry, romance, adventure and historical novels, even the Bible. Then without a second thought kerosene is poured on the makeshift pyramid and intellect is set aflame.
It's considered heresy to be inspired by words. It's a world where reading is banned.
Fahrenheit 451, the brilliant 1953 novel by Ray Bradbury, is the temperature at which books burn. The story is fiction, but the message is real.
For decades, books have been banned and challenged in schools and libraries throughout the United States. It is the reason the American Library Association established an awareness campaign in 1982, which highlights our freedom to read whatever we chose. The campaign, Banned Books Week, promotes reading a book on the challenged or banned list. This year, the campaign takes place Sept. 23-30. Libraries and bookstores in our communities will have banned and challenged books on display.
It's the perfect week to reread or read Bradbury's book or any book on the list.
Bradbury's book, which is not part of the list, is a satirical response to McCarthyism in the 1950s. But censorship of reading materials occurred before that and continues since, throughout the world. In Nazi Germany and under the reign of Stalin, books were burned. The governments of Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan still censure literary freedom. And our own country is not immune.
Last year, 405 books were challenged. Since 1990, when the ALA began compiling online information, 8,700 challenges to ban books have been made. Individuals have fought to remove the Adventures of Huck Finn from the shelves claiming it's racist and contains offensive language. Harry Potter books, from their first release, have been at the top of the banned list because, according to critics, they espouse witchcraft to children. And heaven help any author who attempts to present an honest discussion on sexuality.
It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health, by Robie H. Harris topped the 2005 list as the most challenged book. But Judy Blume, J. D. Salinger and Robert Cormier have all been slammed for work that has children in their stories asking hormonal questions.
The point being that everyone should be allowed to read whatever they want. If someone is offended by a particular body of work, don't buy it or borrow it, but don't prevent another individual from reading it by trying to ban it from the shelves.
What makes us a democracy is our freedom to chose. What makes us smarter is our freedom to learn, discuss and engage in dialogue for and against an issue. What makes us safer is developing our intellect through our desire to learn and discover more about the world around us, and the people who occupy this planet.
One of the ways we accomplish these goals is through unlimited access to literature, which in today's every changing environment, includes DVDs, video games and the Internet in addition to the wealth of books and traditional reading materials available. Censorship of any information should never be acceptable--anywhere.
This was the message Bradbury portrayed through his characters, especially the protagonist Guy Montag, a "fireman"--the occupational name for the book burners. When Montag finally begins to read what he is burning, an amazing thing happens. He starts to develop a soul. The fire to learn grows within him, and he becomes alive only to discover his new knowledge makes him a fugitive.
The story's message is poignant, and one that might never have been written if there was no UCLA library. Bradbury wrote his masterpiece in its basement.
Moryt Milo is the editor of the Willow Glen Resident. She can be reached at 408.200.1051 or via email at mmilo@community-newspapers.com.
