Support Banned Books week

GWC Community GWC Book Club
#1

http://bannedbooksweek.org/index.html

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read!

Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities. Click here to see a map of book bans and challenges in the US from 2007 to 2009. People challenge books that they say are too sexual or too violent. They object to profanity and slang, and protest against offensive portrayals of racial or religious groups–or positive portrayals of homosexuals. Their targets range from books that explore the latest problems to classic and beloved works of American literature.

According to the American Library Association, out of 513 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2008.

#2

I saw on the news today that the next town over has decided to start hiding books under a stairwell to keep them out of the hands of high schoolers.

http://cfnews13.com/News/Local/2009/9/28/parents_want_sexually_explicit_books_relocated_at_library.html

#3

The mixture of cowardice and authoritarianism that these book-ban people embody is terrifying. Makes me want to write a book covering every objectionable theme and hand it out for free to highschool students.

#4

Two things: the stuff that gets listed as “unsuitable for age group” so very rarely is. Kids and teenagers are not as naive and sheltered as their parents might think they are. And I think it should be a rule that any organization that wants to ban books should be forced to read them first. I doubt the people that want books banned have picked up a book themselves for years. Screw 'em.

#5

I’m a big supporter of Banned Books Week. I loved doing displays in my bookstore for it. You are right about the unsuitability issues. One of my favorites was Captain Underpants because the humor was inappropriate for the age group. Last time I checked first graders loved fart,poop and snot jokes. :smiley:

#6

Just as bad, to me at least, is the PC-revisions. Like Aesop’s Fables with the new “happy endings”… completely destroys the story.

#7

there’s a story on the BBC about a gallery exhibition based on fairy tales…some of them were ghastly… :stuck_out_tongue: