
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 25, 1993                   TAG: 9312300015
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BUSY BANNERS

WHY NOT celebrate "Banned Books Week" next week - by reading one? There's a pretty good selection of works that communities around the country have tried to oust from library shelves and classrooms.

"Huckleberry Finn," one of the finest pieces of literature produced in America, is a perennial favorite of the book burners. The latest criticism raised against it, oddly enough: that Huck and the slave, Jim, may have been gay lovers.

"Tarzan," by Edgar Rice Burroughs, was removed from the shelves of one library. The character was, after all, "living in sin with Jane."

At a middle school in Irvine, Calif., last year, students were given copies of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451'' with dozens of words (mostly mild profanities) blacked out.

The temperature in the title is the one at which paper burns. The book is about the dangers of censorship. It's worth reading.

by CNB