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Yesterday marked the beginning of Freedom to Read Week. Today the Pelham Public Library welcomes author Pearce Carefoote who will speak on censorship issues. Carefoote is the author of Forbidden Fruit: Banned, Censored, and Challenged Books from Dante to Harry Potter.

Don't forget to check out the "Banned Book Challenge."

Pearce J. Carefoote, author of Forbidden Fruit, talks about the underlying presumption of censorship.

The underlying presumption of censorship is that members of a society will be harmed if they are allowed to make informed choices for themselves about what they read or see. In essence, it is based on the very elitist premise that the uneducated masses need protection from ideas....If this paternalistic theory was ever valid, it is much more difficult to support in an era when the vast majority of the population in the West holds at least a high school diploma and is more technologically competent than any other generation in history. While weak, powerless, and voiceless populations -- children, for example -- will always need society's special protection to prevent their harm or exploitation, argumentation is always preferable to outright censorship; rather than advancing society, such censorship runs the risk of making it retrograde.

As more and more Catholic school boards pull Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass, Pearce Carefoote, author of Forbidden Fruit: Banned, Censored and Challenged Books from Dante to Harry Potter has been appearing on radio and television, speaking to the issue of censorship.

Hear the CBC radio podcast for November 26th, 2007 as Jian Ghomeshi interviews Carefoote on the topic of censorship.

Forbidden Fruit: Banned, Censored, and Challenged Books from Dante to Harry Potter, is a wonderful new resource that gives readers the background and history on the banning of specific titles. Author Pearce J. Carefoote is a staff archivist at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. In 2002, Carefoote won the OLA (Ontario Library Association) Anniversary Prize, the Rare Books and Manuscripts Award, and the Toronto Area Archivists Group Award.

Research for an exhibition of banned and challenged books in 2005 culminated in this book.

Its Canadian focus makes it a valuable resource for all schools and libraries.

And really, at heart, don't we all want a library that resembles a monstrous otherworldly creature bent on worldwide destruction? Today, and for your viewing pleasure, we present a model of the proposed Czech National Library.


Kinda makes the Twin Tower proposals look tame in comparison, eh?

A million thanks to Your Neighborhood Librarian who had the wherewithal to compare this library both to Kang and Kodos from The Simpsons as well as to a slightly out-of-date selection of delicious spotted dick.

Green swiss cheese. That's what it really is. HA! Got to say it before anyone else.

Wait, wait, wait! It's the cheese from Jeff Kinney's, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Bingo! I should let him know someone wanted to turn it into a library.