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  • Writer's pictureKay Kuever

Celebrating Banned Book Week

As September comes to an end, so begins Banned Book Week. Always celebrated on the last week of September (since 1982), Banned Book Week “encourages readers to examine challenged (and banned) literary works, but also promotes intellectual freedom in libraries, schools, and bookstores." The major goal in bringing awareness to these pieces of literature is to show the power of it and the danger of limiting our voices and therefore information in a free society.


Banned Book Week originally started in 1982 when it was founded by First Amendment and library activist Judith Krug. Krug (born in 1940) was an American librarian and avid critic of censorship who served as director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association in 1967. In 1969, she joined the Freedom to Read Foundation, an American non-profit anti-censorship organization established by the ALA.

In celebration of Banned Book Week and in the favor of allowing the freedom of expression thru words, here are my top three favorite challenged and/or banned books, the reasons they were challenged or banned, and why I think they are important pieces of our literary history.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (published 1970)

What is the book about?


Set in Lorain, Ohio—also where Morrison is from herself—Pecola Breedlove, and eleven-year-old African American girl, believes that she is ugly and wishes to have been born with lighter skin and bright blue eyes. She believes that had she had been born with these characteristics, her life would have ended up differently. She wouldn’t have grown up in a violent household, her parents wouldn't fight, and she wouldn't have been sexually abused by her own father and become pregnant.


Why it was banned?



Why I think this book is important.


The Bluest Eye was the first book of Morrison’s that I ever read when I was 14 years old. In my early tween/teenage years, I was still struggling to find my identity in a schooling system that was predominately white, and whereas an Asian-American student, I was one of, maybe, 20 kids in a class of 600 plus. Like many of my Black peers, I struggled to find characters and dolls that represented who I was and what I looked like. The Bluest Eye opened my eyes to the real problems children of color face on a daily basis. I never thought of myself as “other” because I had a White father and White siblings therefore, by some comparison, that made me “White” as well. It wasn’t until reading The Bluest Eye that I realized that was a fabrication in my mind that I created to make myself not feel “other”. This book made me realize to never be regretful for the traits I was born with, that being a person of color was beautiful.


Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (debuted in 2012)

What is the series about?


Husband and wife duo, Marko and Alana, come from opposite sides of warring extraterrestrial races. The flee authorities from both sides with their daughter, Hazel, who is the occasional narrator for the series as an unseen adult. The story covers their struggle as parents during a galactic war bent on tearing them apart.


Why was it banned?



Why I think this series is important.


First and foremost, Saga has never been marketed as a comic series for anyone considered under the realm of “adult”. While it does include very sexual scenes, one can argue that the illustration borders on high art instead of purely explicit. What is it about sex that scares us as a society so much when it’s a completely natural act? Maybe that's an argument for another day. Regardless of what you think of the illustrations included in Saga as a whole, at its core Saga is a story of love conquering all. It’s a story of unnecessary hatred of one race towards another and therefore the obligatory hatred of any two people from these different societies connecting. It’s segregation. It’s the pure hatred of mixing bloodlines for no other reason than purity. It’s a love story I can fight for.


Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (published 2005)

What is this book about?


A year after losing his father to the tragic events of 9/11, 9-year-old Oskar finds a key in a vase that belongs to him. This sets him off on a series of scavenger style events around New York City to find more information.


Why is it banned?



What I think it’s important.


Like anyone that was alive during the events of 9/11, I remember exactly where I was. I was in eighth grade. My older father, who was somewhere in his 60s and a former member of the armed forces and CIA, woke me up for cross country practice at 5 am. His first words to me were “the World Trade Center is under attack”. At that time, I had no idea what the World Trade Center was, how tall it was, what it represented, who worked there. All I knew was that something horrible had happened. He was silent for the majority of the ride to school and was clearly distracted when he dropped me off. During our ten mile run, we sprinted (a group of five of us that were top on the team) after a teammates father, who not only out legged us, but was carrying a portal radio that was announcing the events as they occurred. It was as we were running that I realized the magnitude of what had happened. That day a lot of my peers were pulled out of school for one reason or another and all I knew was that my older sibling was in New York. About their whereabouts, nothing. If they were safe? Not a word. It was a terrifying and heartbreaking moment for our country and personally horrifying not knowing whether someone I loved was away from danger. They were. What Extremely Loud does a good thing about depicting is this emotion. The uncertainty of mortality, the consciousness of logical thought, and the depiction of mental illness. It takes a moment in all of our lives and creates an extremely personal viewpoint that, to some, is highly uncomfortable. But, I believe it is these honest stories, fiction or not, that help us normalize emotional thought.


Honorable Mention: George by Alex Gino (published 2015)

I feel like I cannot talk about banned books without bringing up George. George is a children’s/middle-grade book that shows the life of a fourth-grader from a transgender protagonist. The book follows George, a male presenting fourth-grader, who wishes to be called Melissa and identifies as a girl. While living her real identity in secret, her wish is to portray Charlotte in her school’s production of Charlotte’s Web. This book was deemed inappropriate for children due to its depiction of a young transgender student. I read George for the first time as a 30-year-old adult. It was a book that I wish that I had been introduced to at a much younger age, despite my own upbringing in the LGBTQIA+ community. This book, while not entirely accurate to the struggles of transgender or nonbinary youth, shows an as close as possible honest account of what it is like to grow up hiding your true self. I recommend this book to anyone struggling themselves and any family members hoping to attempt to put themselves in the shoes of transgender and nonbinary loved ones.


What are your favorite banned or challenged books? Do you agree or disagree with any of my banned picks? Start an open conversation and reach me directly in the comments below, on Instagram at @desertbibliophile, and Twitter at @desertbiblio. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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