JOPLIN, Mo. — Ray Bradbury’s 1953 literary classic, “Fahrenheit 451” — famously critical of censorship and book burning — currently sits at No. 47 on the Online Computer Library Center’s Top 1,000 banned book list.

Now how’s that for irony?

Bradbury, one of America’s great writers, said back in 1987 that “the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian/Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist/Zionist /Seventh-day Adventist/Women’s Lib/Republican/Mattachine/FourSquare Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse … ”

During Banned Book Week — which continues through Saturday — people are encouraged to exercise free speech by stopping by the Joplin Public Library or the Spiva Library on the Missouri Southern State University campus and picking up a banned book.

Restricted access

A banned book is one that’s been censored by an authority, be it a government body, a library or a school system. When a book is banned, public access to it is completely restricted.

“In talking to many people who want books banned, and in listening to them speak, they often come across as narrow-minded,” said Dr. Michael Howarth, who teaches children’s literature and young adult literature classes at Missouri Southern. “You’d be surprised how many people want a book banned, but they haven’t actually read the entire book. They might read the back of the book, or a couple of pages. They base the worth of an entire book on only a couple of pages, which is unfair.”

According to the American Library Association, books are usually banned “with the best intentions — to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information.”

Even though individual cases of censorship may be well intended, it nonetheless limits the freedom of others to choose what they want to read.

“Banning books should be taken seriously by more people,” Howarth said. “I understand that some parents do not want their child to read a book, but they should not prevent other students from reading that book as well. There are too many people who want to control other people’s lives, and this power struggle often makes itself known through the act of banning books.”

Pooh, Scout and Holden Caulfield

Not surprisingly, many of the books that creep up on banned lists center around children’s books and their subjects.

This is done, notes the ALA, “because adults feel that the books have frightening or controversial ideas in them.”

Children’s books like ... “Winnie the Pooh”?

“‘Winnie the Pooh’ has been banned,” said former Webb City resident Terri Birch. “Give me a break. It isn’t an extended metaphor and Christopher wasn’t doing anything with those animals in the woods except playing in his imagination. There, I said it.”

Children’s books ranging from “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” and “Little Red Riding Hood” to “Harriet the Spy” have been banned, essentially, because such works might make children act naughty.

The story of Little Red Riding Hood, Howarth said, is banned in a lot of places “because in the basket of food that she’s bringing to her grandmother there is a bottle of wine. And Little Red Riding Hood is under 21, so some people claim that the book promotes underage drinking. It’s funny, in a sense, but also sad because no student I know has ever pointed this out.”

Some of the towering classics of literature have been banned for one reason or another, including J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” and Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.”

Among young adult classics that have been wrapped in yellow warning labels includes S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders,” Judy Blume’s “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” the hugely popular “Harry Potter” series of books as well as Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight.”

Undeterred challenges

Currently there are two public displays at Joplin Public Library — one found in the adult area and one near the children’s library entrance. Sitting there is a collection of banned books, hilariously surrounded by yellow warning tape, with a list of banned books and a map of where book banning challenges have recently been attempted.

The No. 1 most banned book of all time, said Danya Walker, circulation assistant at JPL, is the Bible, which often astounds people.

“It even sits above the ’Communist Manifesto’” by Karl Marx, she said.

All of the books on display have been titles challenged by Joplin residents with library officials “for being offensive, encouraging of homosexuality or inappropriate for the age group,” according to the library.

What amuses Howarth is the action of trying to ban a book actually creates a greater desire to read it.

“If you ban a book in a town, then you have just guaranteed that almost every high-school student will read it,” he said.

And yet certain individuals or groups continue undeterred. There are hundreds of challenges to books in schools and libraries filed throughout the U.S. each year.   

According to ALA officials, there were 460 known censorship demands filed in 2009. Worse, they estimate that 70 to 80 percent of these are never reported.

Said Dr. Howarth, “Here’s the one thing I would tell a parent who wants to ban a book,” said Howarth. “‘Just because you remove something from a book doesn’t mean that you remove it from real life.’”