books

There's a scene in the movie Donnie Darko in which an overzealous teacher protests the curriculum's inclusion of Graham Greene's hig--h school staple "The Destructors" for its alleged promotion of vandalism. When a bemused parent asks if she even knows who Graham Greene is, she flippantly replies, "I think we have all seen Bonanza."

Unfortunately, the fight for intellectual freedom has more at stake than preventing the confusion of authors with actors on cheesy TV Westerns. Enter Banned Books Week, observed every year during the last week in September. Sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA), it encourages events like this week's Banned Books Reading at the Central Library, which will feature local celebrities reading passages from their favorite controversial books. WXPN's Gene Shay, who will host the event, explains the cause: "Our civil liberties are infringed upon when people with small minds decide to take books away from us." The ALA keeps track of such attempts at banning books, called challenges, and chronicles them on a list of the 100 most frequently challenged. While the list doesn't contain the aforementioned short story, it does include books you'd expect to see on any summer reading list: The Catcher in the Rye (13), Lord of the Flies (70), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (5). According to ALA research, the listed books may reflect only a portion of those that have been flagged by parents or administrators for language, age-appropriateness, and sexual and religious content. Such near censorship worries Pennsylvania Rep. James Roebuck, chairman of the House Education Committee: "In a democratic society, there ought to be an openness — a dialogue over issues — and precluding such a thing is dangerous." Roebuck said he would likely read a section of his favorite, To Kill a Mockingbird (41), but word is that Marty Moss-Coane, host of WHYY's Radio Times, plans to read from the same Harper Lee classic. Which is one kind of challenge the ALA would like to see more often.

Banned Books Reading, Wed., Sept. 28, 7 p.m., free, Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St., 215-686-5415, www.library.phila.gov.