Banned Books Month
1 Sep
Every year around this time we get really excited for Banned Books Week. Not because we are excited about book banning, but because we love that there is a special week set aside to celebrate the freedom to read! Plus, the list put out by the ALA each year of frequently challenged books is a great way to find some of the best YA books out there! Several of our favorite books make the list each year, so the week also serves as a reminder to us that we need to work extra hard to make sure that access to these amazing books is not denied to readers.
Check out the ALA’s list of Books Challenged or Banned in 2009-2010 featuring super cute robots!
We decided to stretch out our celebration this year by celebrating Banned Books Month! This month we will be reading and reviewing books that have been frequently challenged or banned over the years. Reviews will be posted on our blog and linked below in the Mister Linky Widget.
Giveaway!: If you read and review a book which is on one of the ALA’s frequently challenged lists (or that you know has been recently challenged), feel free to share the link to your review below (please include the book name and your blog name in the “Your name” field). We also encourage reviewers to include information about the book’s challenge/banning either in your review or in the comments section. At the end of the month, we will choose one reviewer at random to win a prize – an “I read banned books” tote bag filled with a selection of challenged books and other Banned Books Week goodies (for non US entrants, we can only offer the tote and goodies – sorry!).*
Updated 10/11/10: Giveaway is closed. Winner has been chosen. Feel free to continue sharing and reading reviews!
Over at Steph Su Reads there is a Banned Books Reading challenge which fits nice and cozy with this one! She also has included a great list of resources re: challenged books. Check it out! We plan to participate by reading/reviewing at minimum 1 book per week during the challenge (likely more!).
p.s. Banned Books Week is from September 25th-October 2nd this year! What will you be doing to celebrate?
*We will not be eligible to win, but our guest reviewers will. We will use a random number generator to pick the winner.
I just posted a link to my website where you can hopefully find some interesting stuff to read and comment on. I just posted a short post on “ttyl” by Lauren Myracle and forgot to post the name of the book and my blog title (The “C” Word) in the link. My bad! Apparently I haven’t had enough coffee today. I will do my best to find and review a number of other books leading up to Banned Books Week! Thanks for reading!
Fixed it for you! Any excuse to drink more coffee right? Love your site!
Hi! I found you from Steph Su’s blog. Can’t wait to read banned books with you. The link above is about hearing Lauren Myracle talk about her book being challenged. I loved it. It was so interesting to get her perspective on banning books.
Thanks for sharing your post! I’m so sad whenever I hear that books for young readers featuring same-sex parents are challenged AND when I hear that publishers are encouraging authors to change their characters or be denied access to school book fairs. So sad. Anyway, I look forward to reading your reviews this month!
I just joined Steph’s challenge. I’m looking forward to reading banned books this month and seeing the other banned books my fellow bloggers read. I feel like I’m having fun and doing something valuable at the same time!
Alison Can Read
Awesome! Thanks for sharing your link! I’ll go check it out!
I just finished reading The Chocolate War again. Anyone else read this fine piece of work? I do like Cormier’s style and grittiness, but apparently that’s what’s gotten it banned, so… Anyone else have any thoughts on this book?
This one is on my to-read list for this month – I’ll get back to you later on!
Awesome idea! Thanks so much for visiting my blog too. =) I’m very excited about reading banned books this year, this is my first time participating and it’s crazy the amount of awesome books that are on those lists.
it’s almost funny calling it a challenge, right? it seems like almost every book was, is or will be challenged at some point.
So great to see all these sites encouraging people to read dangerous books!
we are such a bad influence.
This is the greatest contest ever! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog and telling me about it. I’m excited to get started.
I’m pretty excited about it too and I can’t even hope to win something! Nice to connect with you!
Thanks for the comment on my blog, Em! I tried to comment here the other day after posting my link but I kept getting an error message. So fun to be part of this contest and open myself up to some “naughty” reading!
Just read Forever by Judy Blume for school. I also read A Bad Boy Can Be Good For a Girl by Tanya Lee Stone. An excellent exercise is to read both books and talk about how 1975 seems more progressive than the present in terms of hetero teenage sex.
I have been LOVING reading all of these reviews! Thanks for sharing them everyone!
Had a great time reading my Banned Books. I have also loved seeing the look on my 6th graders faces when I show them the covers of often challenged books. They can’t understand why someone wouldn’t want them to read these books. I hope that I have made them think and appreciate their freedom to read.
I can’t remember when I first learned about book banning. I wonder what my response would have been. It’s great that you discuss these issues with your students! Hope the school year is treating you well!
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. About its being banned, you said, “That’s dumb.”–or maybe it was your sister.
Thanks for dropping me an email! I’m excited to see all the banned/challenged books that everyone else reads this month. I posted three reviews that I have done for the challenge so far.
Thanks for posting your reviews! I’m looking forward to finally reading “Looking For Alaska” (hopefully very soon!). And I love “Fahrenheit 451″ and “Slaughterhouse-Five”! Truffaut’s movie version of Fahrenheit 451 is interesting – just watched it yesterday – worth checking out!
Thanks for promoting banned books and for hosting a contest. I’m reading a number of books this month that include so far: FEED, JULIE OF THE WOLVES, THIRTEEN REASONS WHY, TWISTED, LOOKING FOR ALASKA. All of them are worthy of reading, not censoring.
I need to re-read Julie of the Wolves someday!
Thanks for stopping by my blog. It is great to see so much attention being paid to book banning and censorship and just how many people and organisations want to control what we and our children read and, therefore, think.
Hey EVERYONE! Thank you so much for linking up your reviews this month! It has been great reading them all! We will be announcing the winner later this week! We will count linked reviews towards the random drawing up until the announcement of the winner! Feel free to continue posting reviews after the drawing as well! Banned Books Week is Every Week!