The Arkansas Literary Festival shines a reader's light on Banned Books Week tonight with a celebration of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winner, The Color Purple.
The free program will be at 6:30 p.m. at the Central Arkansas Library System's Ron Robinson Theater in downtown Little Rock.
Walker's 1982 novel covers about 20 years in the life of a poor black woman, beginning when she is 14 years old, suffering poverty and abuse in the South. It ranks along with Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird on the American Library Association's list of Banned and Challenged Classics.
The national association sponsors Banned Books Week in honor of stories and ideas that people have tried to censor. And Walker's young heroine, Celie, has been especially hard to stifle in spite of challenges -- attempts to have the book removed from a library -- in at least a dozen states from California to West Virginia.
Steven Spielberg directed the 1985 Academy Award-nominated movie version, and New York's Broadway followed with a 2005 stage musical and this season's revival.
"I was seeking something with poignancy," Arkansas Literary Festival coordinator Brad Mooy says, explaining his choice of The Color Purple. "The book is a beautifully unvarnished look at one woman's dire circumstances before reconciliation."
Tonight's program starts with some of Walker's thoughts about the book, staged as an interview re-enacted by Verda Davenport Booher and Vivian Norman, followed by a screening of the movie version starring Whoopi Goldberg.
Walker sums up what The Color Purple means to her on her website, alicewalkersgarden.com, as: "liberation from enforced, male dominant religion and thought."
Pregnant by her father, Celie writes to God that her abusive parent "never had a kine word to say to me," and later: "He start to choke me." But Celie endures to claim her independence.
"Sisterhood, love, self-worth, empowerment, all of those themes don't really require defending," and the book has not been challenged in Little Rock's public libraries, Mooy says. "What may seem explicit and excessive to some, is commonplace to others."
Most censorship issues center on schools and libraries, and most objections are raised by parents, according to the American Library Association. Sex and profanity incite the most complaints.
Teachers are among the least likely to want a book thrown out of school, the association reports, and factual errors are among the least common sources of complaint.
The Arkansas Literary Festival's observance focuses each year on a different book that endures in spite of repeated attacks by would-be censors.
Previous years' programs have focused on The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.
"Just because one reader is offended," Mooy says, "well, the next reader might be transformed by the work."
WRITERS UNBLOCKED
Other observances of Banned Book Week include an exhibit, through Saturday, of 20 book covers on the fifth floor of the Central Arkansas Library System's Main Library downtown. The display is a challenge to identify each book from its partially obscured cover.
Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock will have Banned Book Week readings from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today in front of the Campus Center. Books on the reading list include George Orwell's 1984 and Ray Bradbury's classic about book burning, Fahrenheit 451.
Some books incite tiny controversies, and some lead to landmark court decisions.
At the Cleburne County Library in Heber Springs, director Zac Cothren reports no major issues with people wanting to ban books. But "we have had a parent take it upon themselves to use a Sharpie to censor an art book."
Among the biggest cases cited by the American Library Association, Counts v. Cedarville School District, in 2003, was a fight over J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series in west central Arkansas.
"Dad told you you're not to do m-magic," as the boy wizard is warned in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. But in this case, the federal lawsuit ended in Harry's return to the open shelves of the school library, over the objections of some parents and school board members that Harry conjured witchcraft.
STRIKE UP THE BANNED
Each year since 1990, the American Library Association, American Booksellers Association and other sponsors of Banned Books Week have compiled a new list of the most frequently banned books.
Newcomers add to a pile of books that offended somebody, somewhere, enough to start a fight.
The titles vary from classics to children's books -- from John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, to Dav Pilkey's The Adventures of Captain Underpants. (The book that asks, "Have you read your underpants today?")
Here is the top 10 list based on the 311 reports of books that were challenged in schools and libraries nationwide in 2014:
1.The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, for depictions of name-calling bullies and black eyes.
"Sure I want to go outside," Alexie writes in the persona of his 14-year-old narrator, a self-described "retard" and member of the Black-Eye-of-the-Month Club. "Every kid wants to go outside. But it's safer to stay home."
2. Persepolis, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, for language and politics in the tale of a girl in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.
3.And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, about a couple of "little bit different" male penguins acting as parents to a chick.
4.The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, about a black girl's longing for blue eyes and blond hair.
5. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris, a children's book about sex.
"What is sex?" the book asks. "What is it all about?" Answers include the cartoon illustration of a happy adult couple in bed.
6. Saga by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples, a graphic novel about two soldiers in love from opposite sides of a galactic war.
7. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, about two boys in strife-torn Afghanistan.
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, high school as described in letters from a 15-year-old boy. He wishes he knew somebody who "doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have."
9. A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard, the author's account of being kidnapped as a child and held captive for 18 years.
10. Drama. a graphic novel by Raina Telgemeier, the backstage story of a girl in a school play.
"HE KISSED YOU?!" is the question in big letters in a balloon with a zigzag outline.
More information about the Arkansas Literary Festival's Banned Books Week observance is available at arkansasliteraryfestival.org, or by calling (501) 918-3098.
More information on Banned Books Week is available at bannedbooksweek.org and the American Library Association at ala.org.
Family on 09/30/2015