Read as if Your Freedom Depended on it Because it Does!

Pop Quiz:

What do the books in the list below have in common?
a. all titles are italicized
b. all have authors
c. all are owned by the CSTCC library
d. all have been banned by someone at sometime

And Tango Makes Three by Richardson and Parnell
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Black Boy by Richard Wright
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner
Freedom Writers Diary by the Freedom Writers & E. Gruwell
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Thurston

Answer: You are right! Well, surely you didn't think we'd give you a quiz you couldn't pass. (Sorry, I didn't mean to call you shirley.)

Yep, that's right. Those innocent little titles listed above are just a drop in the bucket of censorship when compared to the big list that's posted at the American Library Association's site:

Frequently Challenged Books

This week, Sept. 27-Oct. 4, we celebrate the freedom to read as we recognize books whose mere existence has caused them to be removed, hidden, stolen, spurned, and/or burned because someone thought his or her opinion was worth more than your freedom.

Take a few minutes to stop by the library's book display to see a few of the banned/challenged books that we proudly exhibit. Hey, you might even be bold enough to check one out and read it!

Go ahead, you live in a free country, don't you?

Image credit to ALA