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Reading at UW-Madison from banned books, Sept. 27
By Erik Opsal
Library Communications
Posted 9/24/2007
MADISON, Wis. – While the tremendously popular Harry Potter series may have cast a reading spell on America’s youth, the books prompted many parents and schools to try to ban the series from libraries, making them the most challenged book series of the 21st century.
To celebrate the controversy and debate that forever surrounds books, celebrity readers, including Lorrie Moore, will be at College Library at 6 p.m. on Sept. 27 as part of the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, which runs nationally from Sept. 29 to Oct. 6. The event is sponsored in part by the UW-Madison Libraries, Wisconsin’s American Civil Liberties Union and the Wisconsin Center for the Book.
Observed since 1982, BBW is meant to showcase books that have been “challenged,” which means their removal from school or library shelves was requested. The ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom receives hundreds of requests each year for books ranging from the Bible to Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”
According to Don Johnson, president of the Wisconsin Center for the Book, BBW is necessary “to remind Americans not to take the freedom to read for granted.”
Each year celebrity readers choose an excerpt from the banned and challenged list to read aloud. Other readers at this year’s event are:
Emily Auerbach - English professor and project director of Courage to Write
Ada Deer - Distinguished Lecturer Emeritus, American Indian Studies Program
Jim Fleming - Wisconsin Public Radio host
Dawn Crim - UW-Madison Community Relations
Stephen Braunginn - former Urban League CEO
Rockameem - community activist and storyteller
Topping the ALA’s 2006 list for most challenged books is “And Tango Makes Three” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. A story of two male penguins that parent an egg from a mixed-sex penguin couple, many parents and administrators challenged the book due to the issues of homosexuality.
