Hey it’s Banned Books Week and 99% Invisible has an awesome podcast that is 100% worth listening to. It’s about the Griftschrank, or “poison cabinet”, in the Bavarian State Library in Munich, and other “poison cabinets” or rooms that have been used over the years for banned or controlled substances (like pharmaceuticals, or Mein Kampf) and other works considered dangerous.
Banned Books Week is an annual awareness campaign that celebrates the freedom to read. I enjoy the yearly reminder of the censorship and hardship that books can endure. And every year there is some new tip or piece of advice about how to deal with censorship, how to embrace diversity and how to cope with challenges. This year I discovered that NCAC has a censorship toolkit to help parents, teachers and schools deal with challenges and requests to ban books: