This week marks the 27th anniversary of Banned Books Week – an annual event celebrating our freedom to read, free speech and press while also bringing the attention of books being banned in the United States.

According to its official Web site, Banned Books Week was created in response to an overwhelming rise of book challenges in schools as well as bookstores and libraries in 1982. Last year alone, there were 513 book challenges reported to the American Library Association, including such classics as The Catcher in the Rye (profanity and themes of depression), The Color Purple (explicit sexuality and violence) and Of Mice and Men (racial slurs and portrayal of developmentally disabled).

Newer books are not immune to challenges either, including the Harry Potter series (witchcraft), And Tango Makes Three (homosexuality and anti-family themes) and The Kite Runner (sexually explicit and offensive language).

As a former teacher and a soon-to-be school counselor and reading specialist, this is one of my soap box issues. I just don’t understand why people would want to take away my right, their children’s right, and other people’s right to read just because they object to the material.

Reading is how we discover ourselves. Reading is what inspires us. Reading is how we express our constitutional right to freedoms of speech and the press.

What scares me the most about banning books are the harmful effects upon our children.

I believe one of the main objectives in education is to develop our students into informed citizens and fully functioning adults in our society. In order to achieve this, students must be given access to information and explore ideas, even if these ideas are controversial.

I also firmly believe that it is our duty to teach students the responsibility to read critically and make informed decisions about literature on their own. In other words, if students feel uncomfortable with a book’s content, we need to let them be the ones to voice their opinions, rather than have their parents or school officials take away their right to even find their opinions.

Furthermore, when students read controversial books, this gives them the opportunity to discuss and relate to difficult topics that may otherwise remain silent, such as domestic violence. In fact, dealing with moral issues through books creates avenues that teachers and students can use to discuss these issues in a safer and less threatening environment than just in a classroom by itself.

So am I advocating that children should have access to adult material? Of course not. But I believe that interested parties should not be denied access to the books they desire.

I, for one, cannot imagine my life without some of these so-called controversial books. Judy Blume, who is one of the most repeatedly challenged and banned authors in the United States, literally helped me find my voice through her extraordinary characters when I was a preteen girl.

I felt surprisingly comforted reading about the distressing issues that I shared with Holden Caulfield, the main character in The Catcher in the Rye. Learning about the importance of justice and the devastating effects of racism by reading Cry, The Beloved Country and To Kill a Mockingbird might not have happened for me had I not had access to these books in my school.

So I am celebrating Banned Books Week by writing this column to express my voice and let others know about this important occasion. I am going to dust off my old Judy Blume books and get lost in her controversial world where teenagers fall in love without devastating consequences.

And most importantly, I am going to continue to speak out against what I feel is a grave injustice in our society.

- Betsy Brafman Alpert is a graduate student from Cincinnati studying school counseling.