The Awakening by Kate Chopin, 1984 by George Orwell, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee—what do these classic novels of the twentieth century have in common? They have all been challenged or banned.

Over the years, many different groups across a broad ideological spectrum have tried to ban books. According to the American Library Association, “Books usually are challenged with the best intentions—to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information.”

Parents are the group most often trying to censor books, and their top three reasons to censor a book are: it’s sexually explicit, contains offensive language, or is unsuited to any age group. While I recognize parents’ rights to decide what’s suitable reading for their own children, I oppose absolutely their attempts to decide for my child, or for her school, or for our community, what books we’re allowed to read.

Banned Books Week (September 27 – October 3) celebrates our freedom to read and reminds us that censorship continues to jeopardize that freedom. As I noted in a previous post, the books in the Harry Potter series alone have been challenged, restricted, or banned an astounding 100 times. In 2014 and 2015, the list of books challenged, restricted, removed, or banned was a mixed bag that included:

Ironically, just in time for Banned Books Week this month, a parent in Tennessee has attempted to ban the award-winning book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks to all Knox County high school students. Author Rebecca Skloot responded that the parent “has confused gynecology with pornography” in trying to remove this true story about science and medical ethics from the district’s STEM curriculum.

For more information about supporting Banned Book Week, see these ideas and the Banned Books Virtual Read-Out. Or check out a banned book at your local public library. I'm thinking it's the right time to reread Fahrenheit 451.

I want to tell you a secret. Can we keep it between you and I? Or between you and me? Which is correct? This post is all about "me," in that "me" is the right answer.

To explain why, we need to go back to Grammar 101 and the parts of speech. In the phrase above, "between" is a preposition. A preposition gives information about location, space, direction, and time. The noun or pronoun to the right (typically) of the preposition completes its meaning. It's called the object of the preposition and is always in the objective case. In English, case changes only in pronouns, not nouns. The following personal pronouns are in the objective case: me, you, her, him, it, us, and them. Since "between" is a preposition, its pronoun has to be in the objective case, so "me" rather than "I" is correct. Let's look at some other examples of prepositions and their objects.

If you substitute the subjective case for the pronoun, often the sentence sounds wrong.

Distinguishing between "I" and "me" is the tricky one because we've all been taught to politely put the other person first in a sentence (i.e., He and I went to the concert). Our instinct is to do the same with pronouns following prepositions, so "the bird flew toward her and I" sounds correct. To fight that tendency, try switching the order of pronouns in the sentence. Does "the bird flew toward I and her" still sound right?

If you remember that prepositions take pronouns in the objective case and to swap the pronoun order when in doubt over "I" and "me," you won't go wrong in your writing. And don't worry. You don't have to keep this information just between us.