Banned Books Beginning

It’s the start of Banned Books Week here in the U.S., “an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. . . . Banned Books Week 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.” As reported back in April, LGBT children’s classic And Tango Makes Three tops the list of most challenged books for the third year in a row, with the more recent Uncle Bobby’s Wedding coming in at number eight. That’s reason enough to take a special look at banned books on an LGBT parenting blog. I’ll be putting up relevant posts throughout the week (as well as posts on the usual assortment of other topics).

To start, after the jump is a very interesting map from Bannedbooksweek.org showing the geographic distribution of book challenges, 2007-2009. No, they’re not all in red states, but exist across the country. Not only that, but the American Library Association estimates that reported challenges reflect only 20-25% of actual incidents.

View Book Bans and Challenges, 2007-2009 in a larger map