By Alli Schieber
Features Editor
Hundreds of books are banned in schools and libraries a year in the United States.
Each year NWOSU’s Sigma Tau Delta and Writers Round Table clubs host a banned book reading around the same time as Banned Book Week, which is celebrated the first week of October
However, NWOSU hosted its reading on Tuesday.
Books are banned or challenged for several different reasons.
These reasons could be as ridiculous as the parents in the story sent their child to bed without dinner like “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak.
This is the book Sigma Tau Delta president M’chelila Radar, senior English literature major and Spanish minor from Eudora, Kansas chose to read at this years banned book reading.
“I knew that most of the other people that would be reading were going to choose things that were popularly banned or things that were banned because of more serious adult content,” Radar said. “So I decided to do more of an ironic approach to it by choosing something that people would be kind of shocked at for being banned.”
The book that Dr. Brendan Stephens, assistant professor of English read was “Kafka on the Shore” by Haruki Murakami was banned for violence and sexual imagery.
The book conains some graphic language when describing sexual encounters in the book. Which is the part of the book Dr. Stephens read.
Therefore, it was a lot different then why “Where the Wild Things Are” was banned.
Other people read popular books such as “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton, “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, “Cujo” by Stephen King, “Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R Tolkien and “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley.
A lot of those books were banned for being violent.
Other banned books that were not read but were mentioned at the reading were the entire Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park.
Harry Potter was banned because some parents complained about the support of witchcraft.
Junie B. Jones was banned for several reasons including her saying stupid, disrespecting teachers, having an attitude and using poor grammar.
Students who attended the reading also got the opportunity to play Kahoot games and win prizes inbetween readings.
Their were three different Kahoot quizzes with different topics. The topics were cars, Halloween and banned books.
“The book readings are great,” said Naomi Soderstrom, president of Writer’s Round Table and sophomore early childhood education major from Bartlesville. “I always really love seeing the audience interact with us. So whenever we do the Kahoots and everyone gets so excited or really surprised with an answer. I always love seeing that interaction we get from them.”
Some students were a little vocal on their opinions of banned books in the United States.
“We should disregard censorship and allow people to freely read whatever they choose,” Radar said.
Freshman Kevin Kaumans said people don’t have to read the book if they do not like what it is about and they shouldn’t try to stop people who want to read it from reading it.
