Waynesburg College pupil Aubrey Lesnett reads her successful essay within the college’s annual writing contest for Banned Books Week. Her essay detailed the the explanation why a e book shouldn’t be faraway from the Eberly Library.
The books unfold across the Skylight Room of Waynesburg College’s Eberly Library had one factor in widespread: Someplace, they’d been pulled off the cabinets.
The college held a studying and dialogue as a part of its celebration of Banned Books Week, created by the American Library Affiliation to advocate for open entry to data and highlight the threats of censorship.
For a number of years, the college has had an essay-writing competitors throughout Banned Books Week, however expanded it this 12 months to incorporate readings of excerpts from banned books, as carried out by members of Waynesburg College’s theatre program.
“We wished to boost consciousness concerning the freedom to decide on what we wish to learn,” stated Jill Peth, the college’s tutorial and digital providers librarian.
Wednesday’s occasion befell amid a years-long rise in library censorship. In 2024, 2,452 completely different titles had been challenged for removing from libraries, the third-highest quantity because the American Library Affiliation started monitoring it, in line with its Workplace for Mental Freedom.
Lots of the college students who got here hadn’t been conscious that books they’d been assigned to learn in class or remembered as formative experiences — Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Younger Woman,” or “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Hearth” — had been banned in some states, stated Sarah Scott, coordinator of the college’s undergraduate writing heart.
“It’s simply getting them to that consciousness that the sort of censorship is occurring, even in our nation, the place we have fun the truth that you’ll be able to really request a ban on a e book, however we are able to additionally learn these banned books,” she stated.
College students learn excerpts from a mixture of curriculum staples like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and well-liked younger grownup fiction like “Mockingjay.” Consistent with this 12 months’s Banned Books Week theme, “Censorship is So 1984,” two choices got here from the George Orwell novel that was its namesake.
For this 12 months’s writing contest, college students had been requested to ship a persuasive speech for a state of affairs the place their favourite e book was about to be banned and faraway from the Eberly Library. This 12 months’s winner, Aubrey Lesnett, defended a e book she made up — “Whispers Between the Stars,” stated to be a fantasy novel a couple of lady who can hear a mysterious “star stream” with secrets and techniques that contradict official narratives.
“To ban it will be to silence a e book that encourages readers to suppose critically, dream boldly and wrestle with questions of accountability and justice,” she stated. “If we take away tales like this from our cabinets, we don’t simply lose a novel. We lose alternatives for development, dialogue and inspiration.”
Dialogue got here Thursday within the type of 15-minute breakout periods, the place small teams of lecturers and school talked about what they’ve discovered from banned books, how censorship may impression tutorial development and if there are occasions it is perhaps acceptable.
College students in each periods stated discussions in the end coalesced round a rankings system much like these used for TV or films.
Abigail Heymann, a junior forensic science main from Pittsburgh, stated occasions like Wednesday’s assist maintain individuals aware that e book censorship continues to occur.
“These discussions are nonetheless related even now, and it’s disappointing that it’s even an issue, but it surely’s essential to grasp completely different individuals’s views on the subject,” she stated.
