Book Banning in America

By William Noble

Published by Paul S. Eriksson, Middlebury, VT. 1990. Hardcover in dust jacket. White boards with black cloth spine and silver lettering. 349 pages. The book is sort of a history in prose form, beginning with a typical book-banning (Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying) by the Graves County, Kentucky, School Board in 1986, and then progressing back into U.S. history to bring us stories of other significant incidents. The book is obviously pro-First Amendment, but Noble doesn’t seem shy about painting a picture that has both sides in the various controversies frothing at the mouth and screaming platitudes at each other. Compared to other books on the subject, I found it refreshingly straight forward and honest.