Banning Books

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I’ll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book

“When I was growing up in East Texas, we didn’t have any money for books. Our reading room was the small, local library run by an organization of business and professional women. To this moment I can remember checking out my first two volumes. One was Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days; the other was a primer on Greek and Roman mythology—don’t ask me why. 

“Years later, when I walked into the much larger library at the state college where I was a freshman, I was practically overwhelmed. I looked down row after row of books and periodicals, and thought, ‘Wow. All this for me.’ Some of the best hours of my life were spent in that library. . . . 

“Which is one reason it pains me today that even in this modern age some folks in communities across America are saying, ‘No, that book isn’t for you.’ And for reasons that have nothing to do with community, the school or the reader, and everything to do with prejudice.” 

—Bill Moyers, newsman, author, word lover and chairman of National Banned Books Week, 2012



• Editorial Comment: “Bonehead, Wrong-Headed and Thoroughly Un-American,” tonight.

• Related
• Banned & Challenged Classics, American Library Association
• Video Timeline: 30 Years of Liberating Books, American Library Association

• Yesterday’s WORD: Did you miss yesterday’s WORDs from Stephen Fry, on love of language? Click here. 

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PeezPIX by Ted Pease

Pease Poppy