Each September, educators and librarians organize programs and displays around the American Library Association's Banned Books Week to engage readers in conversations about intellectual freedom. Silenced in the Library: Banned Books in America serves as a straightforward guide in examining the history of challenged books as well as attitudes that have over time informed the efforts of parents, religious and political groups, and other challengers to limit the presence and accessibility of certain subjects and titles. Tracing this engaging history, author Zeke Jarvis effectively underscores the lasting and evocative social impact of popular literature in American culture.
A professor of English, biographer, and editor, Jarvis has compiled an accessible and well-researched guide to challenged and banned books in the United States. The nearly 150 adult and juvenile titles reviewed in this text represent a range of work by Western authors that spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From infamous children's...
