GREEN RIVER– The Sweetwater County Library is defending the First Amendment by encouraging the community to check out banned books as part of the national alliance, Banned Books Week.

Banned Books Week is an annual, week-long event that celebrates our inherent right to read and highlights the harms of censorship. Although the celebration is one week long nationally, the Sweetwater County Library has extended it for the entire month of September.

“We want to inspire people to read. Here at the library we encourage people to check out whatever book they want,” Sweetwater County Library manager Lindsey Travis said. “We don’t ban books here.”

The library has wrapped books that have been banned or challenged elsewhere in the country in brown paper bags so they are unidentifiable, and then placed a label on them listing the reasons why the books were banned.

Anyone who checks out a banned book during the month can enter to win prizes.