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So, Banned Books Week was last week.  Last year, for Banned Books Week ’11, I had a well-thought-out post ready to share with you all.  I hadn’t read a banned book in celebration, like many book bloggers, because I was staggering under library deadlines (those holds shelves, my blessing and my curse).  I was, however, reading a book that discussed the dangers of censorship to a free society – In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson, which talked about the rise of Hitler’s Nazi Germany as witnessed by the American Ambassador and his family.  It was a chilling read that illustrated the ease with which a totalitarian regime can take power if people turn a blind eye.  The book itself wasn’t a banned or challenged book, but I thought it was an appropriate choice for Banned Books Week.

This year, Banned Books Week snuck up on me and I didn’t really do anything to mark it.  (With a baby in the NICU, I’m lucky if I can remember the days of the week.  Seriously.  Several times, I’ve gone to check the mail and been perplexed to find the box empty, only to realize that it’s Sunday.)  But as it happened, I was reading a book that, while not banned or challenged (yet) is by an author who is no stranger to banned books lists: J.K. Rowling.  Her new book, The Causal Vacancy, is going to make some people uncomfortable, with its discussions of drug addiction, teen sex and depression, among other touchy topics.  Many of the characters are vile… but it’s a realistic portrayal of small town life.  And the very realism of it all is going to upset people.  (As an aside: poor J.K. Rowling.  She writes about wizards and her books get challenged for being pagan – which is ridiculous.  Then she writes about muggles real people and the critics jump all over her for being too mundane.)

But here’s the cool thing: I can read The Casual Vacancy, or anything else that I want, because J.K. Rowling has, and other writers have, the freedom to write and publish these books and I have the freedom to purchase them.  I can choose to support an author or not, to read a book or not.  No one makes the decision about what to read on my behalf.  No one dictates my choices.  I thank our Founding Fathers, and the drafters of our U.S. Constitution, for that.  And I also thank the millions of men and women who have died to protect my freedom (and the freedom of others) over the centuries.  And the booksellers and the librarians who make books available so that people can decide what they want to read.  And my parents and teachers, for encouraging me to seek out books and develop my own literary tastes.

I’ve never understood censorship.  If you don’t like a book, don’t read it.  But don’t take away others’ right to decide for themselves what they’ll read and what they won’t.  The freedom to decide what you want to write or read seems like a small thing.  Minor, even, in comparison to other – flashier – rights we enjoy.  But it’s tied to our Constitutionally protected freedom of speech.  I’ll always be grateful that I can say what I want, write what I want, and read what I want.  To me, that’s what Banned Books Week is about – celebrating our freedom to choose for ourselves what we will read… and write… and say.