Lillian Bond, age 13, wrote of a shocking event in her life: “In fifth grade, I read To Kill a Mockingbird and made the mistake of reading in class.” [Harper Lee’s novel about a six-year-old girl in the racist South ranks Number 40 on the American Library Association’s list of Most Frequently Challenged Books.]
“My teacher confiscated the book and gave it to my mother, along with a speech about how my mom should be more careful about the things I read. The book was back in my hands the moment we walked out of the classroom. My mom has never tried to restrict my reading.
“I have read books like Smack [Melvin Burgess’s novel about a young couple’s descent into heroin addiction] and Ophelia Speaks [Sara Shandler’s nonfiction collection subtitled Adolescent Girls Write About Their Search for Self], but I do not dwell on them.
“By limiting our understanding, by holding us back, you are really pushing us closer to chaos. You are making us naive. You would never refuse to let us read parables from the Bible. Well, these books are parables, too. They show the light and the dark.”
Celebrate Banned Books Week by browsing through the latest Harry Potter, rereading Hamlet or Slaughterhouse-Five, or giving a kid The Diary of Anne Frank. They’re all on the list—along with many others, including several classics of literature.