So this past week was Banned Books Week and I kicked it off with a vlog on my feelings about banning books.I also had a look at several books that were or are frequently challenged:
-The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney
-The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
-Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
-The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
-The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
I participated in the Virtual Read-out and featured facts about Banned Books in this week’s Fun Fact Friday. I also took part in the TGIF meme from GReads! in which we discussed our stances on book-banning.
-The most challenged book of 2010 was ‘And Tango Makes Three.’
-There were 348 reported book challenges in 2010. But many go unreported.
-Challenges can be made to school libraries, publc
-Reasons range from “inappropriate for age group” to “drug use” to “sexual content” to “religious viewpoint” to “homosexuality.”
And in case, you haven’t gotten it by now this is my final soap-box:
Banning books in America goes against one of the basic rights granted to us in the first amendment of the bill of rights: free speech. And under circumstances where a challenger tries to ban a book on the basis of religion, maybe they’ve missed the bit where we’re also granted freedom of religion.
Some books aren’t for everyone. But that doesn’t mean that they’re for no one and to ban a book is to have the presumption that you know best. That because what you believe isn’t what’s in this book, no one else should be allowed to read it. The close-minded viewpoint doesn’t help anyone. But literacy does.
