ABFFE last week mailed a Banned Books Week order form to members of the American Booksellers Association. All ABA members are entitled to receive a free promotional kit, but they must request it by returning the order form, ordering electronically through the ABFFE Store at www.abffe.com, or by calling or faxing a request. (ABFFE members do not need to order the kit. It will be shipped to them automatically beginning next week.) This year's slogan -- "Let Freedom Read: Read a Banned Book"--is displayed on three posters featuring adult, young adult and children's books that have been challenged. In addition, the kit includes a list of the books that have been challenged over the last year, ABFFE's "Burning Books" poster and an ABFFE pamphlet, "Protecting Customer Privacy in Bookstores." (The resource manual that is normally part of the kit is being omitted this year. A new one will not be published until 2004. However, it is still possible to order last year's manual separately.)

For the last three years, Harry Potter books have been the most frequently challenged titles in the country. Now a federal court in Arkansas will decide whether a school district can remove the books from the shelves of school libraries and require parental permission before allowing a child to borrow them. Overruling a unanimous recommendation by its own library committee, the Cedarville, Arkansas, school board imposed the restriction by a 3-2 vote in June. A parent who serves on the library committee, Billy Ray Counts, has filed suit charging the school board with violating the First Amendment rights of students. Counts claims that by requiring parental permission, the board has stigmatized the Potter books, making it less likely that students whose parents are not familiar with the books will allow their children to read them. The ABFFE board of directors will consider filing an amicus brief urging the court to overturn the restriction.

The Cedarville restriction was imposed after a parent complained that the Potter books encourage children to believe "that magic will solve your problems" and "that there are 'good witches' and 'good magic.'" The use of books about witches and magic in public schools has long been a source of unhappiness for some conservative Christian parents. Recently, it led two women in Cromwell, Connecticut, to call on the school board to ban Katherine Paterson's "Bridge to Terabithia" and Elizabeth George Speare's "The Witch of Black Bird Pond." The protestors also have objected to school trips to the Salem Witch Museum. For more information, go to "Bookselling This Week".

C-SPAN's Book-TV will air conflicting views of the business records section of the USA PATRIOT Act on Sunday at 10 a.m. and 10 p.m., Eastern Time. ABFFE President Chris Finan will express concern over the FBI's new power to secretly request customer records from bookstores and libraries. The provision will be defended by Assistant Attorney General Viet D. Dinh.