10/06/2026
Today is Mad Hatter Day (10/6). "October 6 is a day set aside each year to bring out your silly side while celebrating National Mad Hatter Day." This week (October 4-10) is also Banned Books Week. "Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. Typically (but not always) held during the last week of September, the annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community — librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas. "
"Alice In Wonderland", the book the Mad Hatter lives in, has been banned, so I thought it would be fun to celebrate our freedom to read and Mad Hatter Day at the same time. If you are wondering why it's been challenged, Britannica's website says "In 1900 a U.S. school prohibited the book from its curriculum, claiming that it... diminished, in the eyes of children, the statures of certain authority figures. About three decades later and on the other side of the world, Hunan province in China banned the book for its endowing animals with human language, because the province’s governor worried that the consequences of elevating animals to the same echelon as humans could be catastrophic for society. And ...in1951... the book was again met with dismay—this time by parents in culture-changing America during the 1960s, as they believed that it, along with the movie, encouraged the evolving drug culture with its “overt” allusions to hallucinogenic drug use...."
Celebrate your freedom to read by checking out our Banned Book displays!