Staff Writer
A Clockwork Orange, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and American Psycho are all movies you may have seen (or at least heard of). Whether you enjoyed them or not, did you know that all these films were based off the writings of authors of banned books?
Sigma Tau Delta (the International English Honor Society) held an event Sept. 29th in Babson Library commemorating banned books like these. The members of Sigma Tau Delta wanted to hold this event to recognize the importance of banned books and debate their exclusion from the shelves of schools and libraries.
The members of the International English Honor Society sat in a circle in the corner of the library, surrounded by their attendees, and read aloud excerpts of banned books. The genres of literature ranged from innocent children’s books like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, all the way up to a more advanced To Kill A Mockingbird.
The idea of readings of these excerpts came from the American Library Association. A cataloged list of banned books is posted on the ALA website, and each member of Sigma Tau Delta chose a book from that list to read an excerpt and explain its banning.
“We decided as a group, each member would go to that list, find a title, find out why and when it was banned, and then talk about why it was banned,” said Justine Dymond, assistant professor of English and the event coordinator.
Following each reading, a short speech was made debating the banning of each book.
At the end of the Banned Books Week event, participants received a button reading, “I read banned books”, a Banned Books week t-shirt and milk and cookies to wash down their newfound appreciation of literary classics.
Matt Milano may be reached at mmilano@springfieldcollege.edu