WHEELING — In observation of Banned Books Week, the Ohio County Public Library’s weekly Lunch With Books program will welcome a very special presentation on the topic.

The program will begin at noon on Tuesday, Sept. 20.

Launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries, Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. According to bannedbooksweek.org, it highlights the value of free and open access to information by bringing together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

Banned Books Week 2022 will be held nationally from Sept. 18-24. The theme of this year’s event is “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.”

The American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles lists of challenged books as reported in the media and submitted by librarians and teachers across the country. In January 2022, a Tennessee school board infamously banned “Maus,” a graphic novel about the Holocaust, ostensibly because it contains “inappropriate curse words” and nudity.

For the Banned Books Week’s Lunch With Books program, the Ohio County Public Library in Wheeling will host a panel discussion of Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-Prize winning “Maus” (1986) and its sequel, “Maus II” (1991). The author’s parents were survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp. In the book, Jews are depicted as mice (thus the title) and Nazis as cats.

The panel will be comprised of Temple Shalom’s Rabbi Joshua Lief, history professor Dr. Jeff Rutherford, Linsly School English teacher Dr. Darin McGinnis (also a professor of philosophy), and Mrs. Judith Olsavsky (former head of Linsly’s English department).

Those interested in the panel discussion on Tuesday, Sept. 20, should contact the library by email at lunchwithbooks@yahoo.com or phone at 304-232-0244 to register. The first 50 people to do so who have library cards it’s easy to get one will receive copies of the combined “Maus” and “Maus II” hardcover. Guests are welcome to attend the Sept. 20 panel and keep the book for free with the Ohio County Public Library’s compliments.