CALS Banned Books Week

October 1-7, 2023

Join us for our 12th annual Banned Books Week at CALS, as we celebrate the battle against censorship! This year’s event focuses on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Maureen Corrigan, chief NPR book Critic, chose this as one of five banned books everyone should read, and as Ernest Hemingway said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” This book has been challenged repeatedly due to its lack of “moral” characters and language.

Banned Books Week is the annual celebration of the freedom to read. The event is sponsored by a coalition of organizations dedicated to free expression, including American Booksellers for Free Expression, American Library Association, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Amnesty International USA, Association of University Presses, Authors Guild, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Freedom to Read Foundation, Index on Censorship, National Book Foundation, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Council of Teachers of English, PEN America, People For the American Way Foundation, PFLAG, and Project Censored. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. Banned Books Week also receives generous support from HarperCollins Publishers and Penguin Random House.

CALS Banned Books Week is sponsored by the Fred K. Darragh Jr. Foundation.