Once-Banned Books Will Get Readings at Saddleback

Saddleback College President Constance Carroll will lead off a weeklong campus defense of free expression Monday as Saddleback students, teachers and administrators will read aloud passages from books once banned somewhere in the United States.

“Alice and Wonderland,” “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Women in Love” will be among the first books to be excerpted for Banned Books Week. Each was once considered dangerous in this country, and each has at times been outlawed from libraries.

“We want to show people that maybe censorship is more dangerous than the ideas themselves are,” said Brenda Lamanuzzi, a member of the Friends of the Saddleback Library, which is sponsoring the event. “We want people to be aware of the freedom to read. We’re hoping more campuses will follow our lead and acknowledge Banned Book Day.”

Banned Books Week has been observed at schools and libraries nationally for the last eight years as part of an annual campaign by the American Library Assn. to remind patrons of their “right to read.”

Although Saddleback College’s library is the only one in the county holding such a reading event this year, libraries at UC Irvine and Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa will display once-prohibited books as part of exhibits marking Banned Books Week.

Carroll will start the Saddleback event at 11:45 a.m., introducing students, teachers and community members who will read. Each reader will be given seven minutes to read a passage the reader picks from a book once considered “dangerous,” Lamanuzzi said.

Other scheduled activities include a speech by Times columnist Jack Smith; screenings of films such as “Fahrenheit 451,” which is about book-burnings and a closed society, and an exhibit of recently outlawed books such as “The Color Purple” and “The Catcher in the Rye.”

Event organizers are also holding an Author-Title Matchup contest, awarding a free book to whoever matches the most banned book titles with the names of their respective authors.

Other books to be included in the read-out are “Of Mice and Men,” “Flowers for Algernon,” “Another Country,” “Grendel,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Great Gatsby,” “The Jungle” and “A Light in the Attic.”