Angels Theatre members read excerpts from challenged books

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By MICAH MERTES / Lincoln Journal Star

A handful of freedom readers got together during Banned Book Week for a public reading of excerpts from challenged books.

The readings were performed by the Angels Theatre Co. in cooperation with ACLU Nebraska, the Nebraska Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and the Academic Freedom Coalition of Nebraska. 

“This is our fourth year celebrating Banned Book week with readings,” said Amy Miller, legal director for ACLU Nebraska.

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Pat Carlson of the Angels Theatre Company reads from Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” during the “Attack of the Banned Books” event at Lee Booksellers on Oct. 2. (Heidi Hoffman)

Pat Carlson of the Angels Theatre Company reads from Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” during the “Attack of the Banned Books” event at Lee Booksellers on Oct. 2. (Heidi Hoffman)

Nearly all the books chosen for the readings are on the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books, Miller said. They included “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, “The Witches” by Roald Dahl and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky.

Here are a few excerpts:

From “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker, as read by Pat Carlson:

How come the Bible, just like everything else they make, all about them doing one thing and another and all the colored folks doing is getting cursed … Ain’t a way to read the Bible and not think God white … When I found out I thought God was white and a man, I lost interest … God ain’t a he  or she, but an it … I believe God is everything, say Shug, everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that and be happy to feel that, you’ve found it.

“The Witches” by Roald Dahl, as read by Jeanne Kern:

A witch, you must understand, does not knock children on the head or stick knives into them or shoot at them with a pistol. People who do those things get caught by the police.

A witch never gets caught. Don’t forget that she has magic in her fingers and devilry dancing in her blood. She can make stones jump about like frogs and she can make tongues of flame go flickering across the surface of the water … As far as children are concerned, a REAL witch is easily the most dangerous of all the living creatures on earth.

“The Golden Notebook” by Doris Lessing, as read by Gail Ogden:

I write very little in this notebook

Why?

I see that everything I write is critical of the party. Yet, I am still in it. Molly too.

Three of Michael’s friends hanged yesterday in Prague. He spent the evening talking to me or rather to himself. He was explaining first why it was impossible that these men could be traitors to Communism. Then he explained, with much political subtlety, why it was impossible that the party should frame and hang innocent people. And that these three had perhaps got themselves, without meaning to, into objectively anti-revolution positions.

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, as read by Gail Ogden

When they were both juniors, Patrick and Brad were both at a party together with the rest of the popular kids … Patrick and Brad both got pretty drunk at this party. Actually, Patrick said that Brad was pretending to be a lot drunker than he was … When they ran out of small talk, they just looked at each other, and then they ended up fooling around right there in the basement.

Patrick said it was like the whole weight of the world left both their shoulders.