An Introduction.

Welcome to The Book Project. This is a blog that deals with the reading, interpreting and recommendations of books that have been challenged or banned in one school district/library or another.

The notion of "banned books" fell into my lap in Jeffrey Perchuk's Literature of Censorship class, my final semester of high school. I had wanted a different elective for English and thus wasn't expecting much of anything when he passed out a list of the top banned books in the United States. As I looked over the list, my jaw dropped at just how many of them I had read as a youngster. Though the rest of the class wasn't quite as exciting, the idea of a book being so controversial that people could want it not read at all appealed to me long after I had graduated.

In my semester at the University of New Haven, I looked up lists of banned books, marking down those I'd read and making a note to buy or borrow and read those I hadn't yet. I did this while my roommates slept at night or while I had spare time between classes. Somehow the idea snowballed into creating a space to write about the books I had read and discovered, trying to find out just why they were challenged or banned. The result is this blog, which will be a record of challenged and banned books as I read and interpret them. As a bookworm and aspiring writer/journalist myself, I find that there's not much more offensive than the oppression of words and ideas. Everyone should have a chance to tell their story, whether it may offend or not, or whether it may or may not be a happy tale. Above all, no one has the right to withhold the truth, because after all... beautiful lies are still lies. Besides, ignoring the facts doesn't erase them.

Enjoy.