Correspondent: Why Are So Many Books Banned?

Why Are So Many Books Banned?
Editor, Times-Dispatch Sept. 26 through Oct. 3, 2009, is Banned Books Week and this year's list of banned and challenged books says more about the librarians placing these books on the shelves of school and public libraries than it does about those challenging the selections.

More than half the books on the list are challenged because they contain graphic depictions of a full range of sexual activity; dialogue filled with profanity, racial epithets, and demeaning language; excessive violence; and the representation as morally neutral activities that in many world cultures are recognized as wrong.

What the list does not include are the tens of thousands of books that never make it to the shelves of these libraries because the librarians and small groups of arbiters impose their own values on the selection process. I wonder how many books have been challenged and/or "banned" from schools not because they were poorly written or did not achieve critical acclaim, but because they did not conform to the ideologies of the decisions makers at school and community libraries.

Brian Regrut.
Midlothian.