Clutching dog-eared copies of beloved novels, a small but diverse group of literature enthusiasts gathered in the Lane Center’s Atkinson Room on Thursday evening to discuss, celebrate, and support a special category of books: those that have been challenged or banned. The Banned Books Reading was organized by the Frostburg State University Department of English and the English Honors Society Sigma Tau Delta and marks the 12th year of an annual tradition to embrace literature’s controversial side. “The ALA [American Library Association] has a week dedicated to banned books, so we coordinate every year with them,” explained Mary Ann Chapman, an FSU lecturer who teaches classes on introductory literature, literature and pathology, and business writing.
The ALA has been a longtime champion of controversial books, working since 1876 to “ensure access to information for all,” according to their mission statement. Professor Mary Anne Lutz, who serves as an advisor to Sigma Tau Delta and Chair of the Curriculum Committee for the English Department, was the presenter for the evening. “The ALA asserts that books with controversial content must stay available,” she stated in her opening address. “Every year, they release a list of books that are challenged, which we’ve provided for you tonight.” Indeed, they had: each audience member could read for himself the titles of some of the challenged books reported to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, a subcommittee of the ALA. The lists included a wide range: from the popular, such as Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy; to the allegedly “sexually explicit,” such as the children’s book My Mom’s Having A Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler; to the classic, such as Harper Lee’s timeless To Kill a Mockingbird. “I think it’s surprising to people that books we consider classics are also on the list,” Professor Lutz commented.
Despite the large amount of controversy surrounding these titles, fans such as the reading’s attendees were not discouraged from displaying enthusiasm for their favorites. “Does anyone know what book has been challenged the most in the past decade?” Professor Lutz asked the audience. Several excited voices piped up “Harry Potter!” “You got it!” Lutz replied with a laugh. “Right on the mark!” Students were encouraged to sign up before the event to read their personal favorite passages of banned books aloud, as well as enter their name in a raffle for one of two prizes.
Selections were read aloud from a wide swath of literary genres. Many of the readers seemed to embrace, even revel in the fact that these books were at some point outlawed. Skye Pinney took the podium and dryly stated, “I’m reading from A Clockwork Orange. Those of you who have read it know why it’s banned.” Likewise, Christine Barry’s selection, The Hobbit, was banned for its alleged encouragement of satanism. Even the well-loved Dr. Seuss has been met with controversy, as two spirited presenters explained. Debbie Wiles followed an entertaining reading of Green Eggs and Ham with the remark that it was banned in the People’s Republic of China for thirty years, due to its “early Marxist content.” Vince Morton provided a similarly absurd explanation for the banning of The Cat in the Hat: “It was banned because of child labor laws. They thought it promoted child labor...” After a pause, he added an incredulous, “Okay... Let’s see what the good Doctor has to say...”
Celina Bevington, who read from The Call of the Wild, is pictured below with her
grand prize of a mug with twenty-four challenged book titles painted in orange and red. Barry, meanwhile, took home a button emblazoned with the phrase that fittingly summed up the message of the entire evening: “I’ve never met a banned book I didn’t like.”
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