From the Pages of North Carolina Libraries

An Author Looks at Censorship

Abstract

In Fall 1987 (Volume 45, Issue 3), author Lee Bennett Hopkins contributed “An Author Looks at Censorship,” an issue which resonates strongly with libraries in North Carolina and beyond today. Hopkins was an award-winning children’s author who was also an incredibly prolific anthologist of poetry for children—he compiled more than 120—and who created the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award (Pennsylvania Center for the Book) and the Lee Bennett Hopkins/International Reading Association Promising Poetry Award for outstanding writing for children. In this essay, Hopkins describes how the “concern, doubt, and anxiety” in these critical times leads teachers and librarians to self-censor, thus depriving readers of the richness of literature to explore the full range of our experiences. Hopkins ends by urging us “open more library doors” and to “do it now!”