Experience forbidden reading
‘The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.’ – Mark Twain
Book Burning
Fiction - 1966 Movie
“I wasn’t trying to predict the future...I was trying to prevent it”. —Ray Bradbury
Reality - Twenty-first Century
Ray Bradbury was prescient in his concerns about book burning in the future.
Burned out library ruins
The burning of the library at Alexandria, Egypt was arguably the worst loss of accumulated human knowledge in the history of the world.
Classic Banned Books
“Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell. The 1949 dystopian novel was challenged in Florida in 1981 for being “pro-communist” and sexually explicit.
“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain. In 1922, after parent complaints about the use of racist epithets, the Burbank (CA) Unified School District superintendent removed this title from required classroom reading lists.
“Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley. This book was challenged as required reading in the Corona-Norco Unified School District in 1993 because it is “centered around negative activity.” The novel also was removed from a high school library in Foley, Ala., in 2000 after a parent complained that it showed contempt for religion, marriage and family.
“Catch-22” by Joseph Heller. The 1961 antiwar novel was banned by a school district in Strongville, Ohio, in 1972. After students filed a lawsuit, a federal appeals court restored access, deciding the students had “the right to receive information which they and their teachers desired to have.”
