Banned Books Week

At the end of October, the senior library focused on ‘Banned Books Week’, which is celebrated annually in the UK and most widely, in the US.  With this year’s theme being ‘Let Freedom Read’, this was a brilliant opportunity for students to engage with the issues arising around book banning and wider censorship .  To engage students further, we ran a library competition asking students to match eight famous book titles, to the reasons that they have been historically banned – some proving to be surprising reasons!  For example:

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865).  Reasons banned: Portrayal of animals as equals to humans / Mocking figures of authority / Drug references

The Witches by Roald Dahl (1983).  Reasons banned: Depictions of witchcraft / Devaluing the lives of children / Negative portrayals of women

We had five student winners – congratulations and thanks to everyone who joined in.

India (Y7)
Yoona (Y8)
Lara (Y8)
Francesca (Y10)
Sophia (Y10)