Books that have a checkered past are on display at Founders Memorial Library until the end of October.

The library exhibit, “Intellectual Freedom: Banned and Challenged Books” features “How to Eat Fried Worms” by Thomas Rockwell; “Scary Stories,” a series by Alvin Schwartz; and the ever-popular “Harry Potter” books by J.K. Rowling.

There are four cases at the library that have books in them. Next to each book is a card that tells whether the book is banned or just challenged, as well as information about the book.

There is a difference between challenged books and banned books.

A challenged book is when someone has a problem with a particular book or series, and he or she lets the library know they don’t want that book in the library anymore. It then is at the discretion of the library to decide what it will do with the book. If the library decides to remove it, it becomes a banned book.

“Forever” by Judy Blume was challenged at a library because it was a story about a sexually active teen. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou was banned by libraries because of a graphic rape scene.

“I think it is an interesting topic,” said Linda Groat, a library technical assistant. “I am really happy the way things turned out. In the exhibit, there are books by a couple of authors who even went to prison. It is a very worthwhile and important exhibit for people to see because often we take our freedom for granted. It is important to be able to read what we want and not have anybody tell us what we can and can’t read.”

Elizabeth Fenwick, a library operating assistant, said most of the books in the library’s display were only challenged.

The American Library Association has a Web site that shows the 100 most-challenged books. From the period of 1990 to 2000, the book “Scary Stories” received the highest number of challenges.

The books used in the display were ones the library owned and had illustrations for. Students interested in finding out more about the challenged and banned books can inquire within the library.