BiblioFiles #70: On Censorship and Book Banning

The titles you can find wandering through the children’s section of the library can be quite alarming. Should the public library really be putting such things on their shelves? Every year the ALA releases their list of books that have received the most pushback - the most requests to be banned. It can be easy to sympathize with those who have expressed their concern, but what is at stake when we ask the library to remove a book from their collection? Or what about when public opinion turns against an author in the canon? What problems are wrapped up in the larger issue of censorship and book banning?

Referenced Works:

– State of America’s Libraries Report 2019

– Little House on the Prairie, Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

– The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

– Areopagitica by John Milton

– Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

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