I must have looked lost as I weaved and wandered through the shelves at the recently spruced-up Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library on my mission to find that famous “filthy, trashy novel.”

I was thankful I couldn’t find it. It was only because patrons had already checked out all three copies in the library collection.

Though it’s far from a lurid, provocative tale, Harper Lee’s classic “To Kill A Mockingbird” — immensely tame by today’s standards of literature, film, television and Internet — was once challenged and described by a parent in New York as a “filthy, trashy novel.”

“Mockingbird” was just a tenth of my search though as a I bobbed in an out of the aisles looking for the 10 most challenged and banned pieces of classic literature — all in honor of Banned Books Week.

One-by-one, I checked off my list some of the most frequently banned books, from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” to George Orwell’s “1984.”

I’m a firm believer in playwright Clare Luce’s position that “charity like censorship should begin at home, but unlike charity, should end there.” So I’m proud to say our library has all 10 of the top banned books, even Vladimir Nabokov’s infamous “Lolita,” though I only found it in a large print edition.

My search was sparked by a school district in my home state that last week banned seven contemporary books that were part of the high school English curriculum. Among the books banned by Highland Park, Texas, Independent School District was “The Glass Castle: A Memoir” by Jeannette Walls.

Walls happens to be the keynote speaker for the district’s literacy festival next spring. Her memoir tells of life in a dysfunctional, impoverished home ruled over by an abusive, alcoholic father.

“My book has ugly elements to it, but it’s about hope and resilience, and I don’t know why that wouldn’t be an important message,” she told The Dallas Morning News. “Sometimes you have to walk through the muck to get to the message.”

The muck of life is all around us, and as much as some parts of our society try to shield them, it surrounds our teenagers.

Unabashed stories promoting sex, drugs and violence are constantly at the fingertips of the county’s youth via the Internet-connected smartphones they carry around in their pockets.

I would much rather them encounter the ugly parts of the world — like Atticus Finch’s Maycomb County —in a way that doesn’t glorify drugs, sex and violence.

If students want to fill their minds with literature, I say, let them. There aren’t enough readers these days.

My advice to parents is to take your teens to the library and check to see if that “filthy, trashy novel” is back on the shelves. If it’s not, grab another one. We will all be better for it.

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Josh Edwards is a reporter and can be reached by email at josh.edwards@vicksburgpost.com or by phone at 601-636-4545.