LEWISTON – Visitors to the Lewiston Public Library will find a special display of some of history’s most controversial literature when the library joins thousands of institutions nationwide in observing Banned Books Week, Sept. 29 to Oct. 6.

The exhibit will include books from the American Library Association’s most-challenged list: “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “The Da Vinci Code” and books from the Harry Potter series. All of the titles on display on the library’s first floor will be available for borrowing.

Each year, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom receives hundreds of reports on books and other materials that were “challenged” by people who asked that they be removed from school or library shelves.

There were 546 known attempts to remove books in 2006, and more than 9,200 attempts since the ALA began to electronically compile and publish information on book challenges in 1990. Challenges are defined as formal, written complaints filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.

Topping the ALA’s list of most-challenged titles for 2006 was “And Tango Makes Three,” an award-winning children’s book telling the true story of two male penguins who adopted an abandoned egg at New York City’s Central Park a few years ago. Those filing complaints felt that the book had homosexual undertones.

“Book banning has never been a major issue in L-A because citizens here treasure their freedom to read and look to their libraries to provide them with a variety of resources on all topics and representing all points of view,” Lewiston Library Director Rick Speer said in a prepared statement.