SALISBURY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Outside of an independently owned South Main Book Company in Salisbury, a group of people are taking a stand against nationally banned books by reading out passages from them.
“It’s a very interactive way to kind of educate people about some of the humorous reasons that certain books have been challenged and some of the extremely unfunny reasons why other books have been challenged,” said the owner of the bookstore Alissa Redmond.
One of those books, “Charlotte’s Web”, was banned because talking animals are unnatural.
Another book, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.”, was banned because the author Judy Blume discusses menstruation.
Redmond read “The Diary of Anne Frank” aloud.
“It was probably the first work I’d ever read by someone who was Jewish. Definitely the first work that I ever read by someone who was a victim of the holocaust and lived in a concentration camp and died there. And so there were a lot of different viewpoints that I picked up from this book that I would not have otherwise perhaps understood,” she said.
Inside, Redmon had a spot with several banned books that people could grab to read. She included notes with reasons why they had been banned.
“It’s just a great way to teach everybody about the fact that these books have been challenged all over the country, but they are also the books that defined us and helped us become the people that we are,” Redmond said.
Those in support of certain books being banned argue if a parent wants a child to read controversial content, they should do it at home.
