Banned Books Reading

Members of Sigma Tau Delta, FSU's English Honor Society, hosted its annual Banned Books Reading in the Lewis J. Ort Library on the evening of October 3rd. Participating student readers chose books that had been banned in the past as controversial like Stephen King's The Shining and Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games and read selections.

Every year since 1982, the American Library Association has celebrated the freedom to read through this event. Banned books on the 2017 list included Little Bill, Looking for Alaska and This One Summer. 

Librarians and teachers resist the attempts of censors to restrict access to targeted books by celebrating rather than condemning banned titles. Banned Books available for circulation at the Ort Library were displayed throughout the week. 

Ort Library Hosts Banned Book Reading

Thirty participants listened to readings of selections from banned books in the Ort Library on October 4. The event was co-sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta, FSU's English Honor Society and the Ort Library.

Readings included excerpts from titles: The Amityville Horror, Scary Stories, The Grapes of Wrath, Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn.

Dr. Mary Anne Lutz, Honor Society Adviser, is pictured below with Bailey Kight, Kat Wharton, Katie Duddridge, Nick Gray, Niki Folk, Megan Alvarez and Marshall Sandifer.

Banned Books Week Reading in Library - October 4, 7 pm

Frostburg State University’s English Honors Society Sigma Tau Delta and the Ort Library will host a banned books reading on Tuesday, Oct. 4, at 7 p.m. on the third floor of the Ort Library on campus. Members of the campus and local community are invited to attend and read excerpts from books deemed controversial enough to be banned or challenged.

The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be available. For further information contact Dr. Mary Anne Lutz of the FSU Department of English at mlutz@frostburg.edu or Dr. Lea Messman-Mandicott of the Ort Library at lmessman@frostburg.edu.

If You Ban Them, We Will Read Them

Banned Books Reading, Sept. 29

On a third floor teeming with the energy of students working and generally being collegiate nearby, we co-hosted, with the English Department and Sigma Tau Delta, the English Department's honors society, a reading of books that have been challenged, banned, or removed from book stores, libraries, schools. This was part of the American Library Association's 18th annual Banned Books Week.

Students and faculty read selections from contentious texts such as Brave New World, Beloved, Han Nolan's Dancing On the Edge, Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, and Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, banned from the Laytonville, CA school district in 1989. Laytonville's chief industry: lumber.

The mood was jocular and effervescent. There were cookies.

To learn more about Banned Books Week, book challenges, and intellectual freedom, see:

Banned Books Week.org

The Nation's Blog post on BBW

Wall Street Journal: Not a big fan of BBW

Banned Books Reading, Sept. 29

The American Library Association's Banned Books week is Monday Sept. 28-Sat. Oct. 3. To commerate it, the Library is collaborating, for the second straight year, with the English Department's honor society Sigma Tau Delta to host a reading of banned

and challenged books.

Tues. Sept. 29 7:30 p.m.

3rd floor, Ort Library

free and open to the public

refreshments served

Readers will include Sigma Tau Delta members and other members of the university community.

In past years, featured titles have included Vonnegut's Slaughter-house Five, Ginsberg's Howl and America, and several Young Adult titles.

For more info, contact Jeff Maehre at jamaehre@frostburg.edu.