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Banned Books Week 2012

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CELEBRATE YOUR FREEDOM TO READ AT GREENWICH LIBRARY

The Books They Don't Want You To Read. Support Banned Books Week, September 30 to October 6, 2012.

Intellectual freedom — the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular — provides the foundation for Banned Books Week (BBW). BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them. BBW highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982. This year BBW celebrates its 30th Anniversary.

The most challenged and/or restricted reading materials have been books for children. However, challenges are not simply an expression of a point of view; on the contrary, they are an attempt to remove materials from public use, thereby restricting the access of others. Even if the motivation to ban or challenge a book is well intentioned, the outcome is detrimental. Censorship denies our freedom as individuals to choose and think for ourselves.

American libraries are the cornerstones of our democracy. Libraries are for everyone, everywhere. Because libraries provide free access to a world of information, they bring opportunity to all people. Now, more than ever, celebrate the freedom to read at your library. Visit the Greenwich Library or its Cos Cob and Byram Shubert branches and pick up an old favorite or a new banned book this week.

Celebrate your freedom to read whatever you want, no matter the content as Greenwich Library joins libraries across the country in observing Banned Books Week from September 30 to October 6. Take one home and decide for yourself.

The "10 Most Challenged Books of 2011" reflect a range of themes, and consist of the following titles:

1. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle.
Chronicles, in "instant message" format, the day-to-day experiences, feelings, and plans of three friends, Zoe, Maddie, and Angela, as they begin tenth grade; Now high school juniors, Zoe, Maddie, and Angela continue to share "instant messages" with one another as one of them experiments with marijuana, another gets her first boyfriend, and the third moves three thousand miles away; Throughout their senior year in high school, Zoe, Maddie, and Angela continue to share "instant messages" with one another about their day-to-day experiences as they consider college, sex, the importance of prom, and the inevitable end of their inseparable trio.
2. The Color of Earth, by Kim Dong Hwa.
In the tradition of My Antonia and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the renowned Korean manwha creator pens a trilogy about a girl coming of age, set in the vibrant, beautiful landscape of pastoral Korea.
3. The Hunger Games (trilogy), by Suzanne Collins.
The acclaimed author of the New York Times-bestselling Underland Chronicles series delivers equal parts suspense and philosophy, adventure and romance, in a stunning novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to the present.
4. My Mom's Having a Baby!: A Kid's Month-By-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler.
Elizabeth's mom is having a baby, and the whole family is involved. Elizabeth learns all about the baby's development, and she traces his growth, month by month. She learns how the baby got inside Mom, too.
5. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie.
Based on the author's own experiences, this first young adult novel by bestselling author Alexie features poignant drawings by acclaimed artist Ellen Forney that reflect the characters art as it chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy attempting to break away from the life he was destined to live.
6. Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's series about Alice McKinley, every girl's BFF, has been hailed by Booklist as "a road map for a girl growing up today." (from the publisher)
7. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley.
Huxley's story shows a futuristic World State where all emotion, love, art, and human individuality have been replaced by social stability. An ominous warning to the world's population, this literary classic is a must-read.
8. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones.
Sophie's mother doesn't know about the boy who's pressing Sophie to go further than she wants. Or about the boy she chats with online. These sharp, funny, and tragic poems tell of Sophie's sometimes painful but always passionate journey of self-discovery.
9. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar.
"Welcome to New York City's Upper East Side, where my friends and I live, go to school, play, and sleep--sometimes with each other." (from the publisher)
10. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
Harper Lee's classic novel of a lawyer in the deep south defending a black man charged with the rape of a white girl.