“LET BOOKS BE. Protect the freedom to read.” Those statements theme this year’s nationwide October 4-10 Banned Books Week. That event focuses on informing all of us about book censorship attempts in libraries, schools and bookstores.
Locally, Buckham Memorial Library is spotlighting Banned Books Week in two displays. There I read a list of 10 far-fetched reasons for banning books, according to the American Library Association. For example: Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic “encourages children to break dishes so they don’t have to dry them.” Or “the basket carried by Little Red Riding Hood contained a bottle of wine, which condones the use of alcohol” from the story by Jacob and Wilhelm K. Grimm. Or “if there is a possibility that something might be controversial, then why not eliminate it?,” referencing Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.
As I read down the list of ridiculous reasons for banning books, my jaw dropped. I laughed at the absurdity of it all. Really?
Because I’m a writer, an avid reader, a journalism school graduate who has worked as a newspaper reporter, and a strong supporter of First Amendment rights, I hold zero tolerance for banning books. If someone objects to the content of a book, then don’t read it. But don’t tell me I can’t read it. And certainly don’t pull it from a public space.
With kids, adults should consider age, maturity and the consequences of withholding a book from a child in their life. If I was a tween or adolescent and my parents or school banned a book, I’d probably try really hard to find a copy. Banning books from public libraries and schools is not a decision I can support. Ever.
I believe that knowledge is power. I’d rather a child be informed than uninformed. I’d rather a child learn from a reliable information source, such as a book, than “learn” from peers, social media or the internet. Or be kept in the dark. Kids are way smarter, know way more, than we adults realize.
All of those thoughts flitted through my mind as I viewed the two Banned Books Week displays at the Faribault library. Those displays featured books like Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
I fingered the free LET BOOKS BE swag—bookmarks, buttons, wristbands, stickers—grabbing a few to show that I’m not OK with banning books.
We need only look at history, to Nazi Germany, to understand the devastating consequences of banning books. Consider May 1933, when 40,000 people gathered in the Berlin town square and burned some 20,000 books deemed as “un-German.” That is perhaps the most extreme example of book banning ever.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote George Santayana in The Life of Reason in 1905, years before the book burnings in Nazi Germany. Now more than ever with attacks on the free press and on First Amendment rights, it’s important and necessary that we, and I don’t mean just librarians and teachers, stand strong against censorship, against book bannings.
To suggest that The Diary of Anne Frank should be censored because “it is a real ‘downer’” is among the far-fetched reasons given for banning a book on the ALA list I read at my local library. Imagine suppressing the voice of that remarkable teenager by pulling her diary from library shelves. I cannot fathom the thought of such absurdity, of Anne’s story left unread because someone objected. “LET BOOKS BE. Protect the freedom to read.”
FYI: To learn more about Banned Books Week and banned books, visit the American Library Association website by clicking here.
© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
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