for those of you who don't know what banned books week is: from the american library association:
Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States. Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them. The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings or restrictions.
this year chicago is kicking off banned books week with a readout in bughouse square (washington square park) on september 25th from 12pm-2pm. authors chris clutcher, lauren myracle, carolyn mackler and others will read from their work and share their experiences as targets of censors. after the readings there will be book signings from the authors in attendence. bughouse square is located on 901 N Clark St, Chicago, IL.
4 comments:
No books have been banned in the USA for about a half a century. See "National Hogwash Week."
Thomas Sowell says Banned Books Week is “the kind of shameless propaganda that has become commonplace in false charges of ‘censorship’ or ‘book banning’ has apparently now been institutionalized with a week of its own.” He calls it “National Hogwash Week.”
Former ALA Councilor Jessamyn West said, "It also highlights the thing we know about Banned Books Week that we don't talk about much — the bulk of these books are challenged by parents for being age-inappropriate for children. While I think this is still a formidable thing for librarians to deal with, it's totally different from people trying to block a book from being sold at all."
http://www.librarian.net/stax/1858
And then there's Judith Krug herself who created BBW:
"Marking 25 Years of Banned Books Week," by Judith Krug, Curriculum Review, 46:1, Sep. 2006. "On rare occasion, we have situations where a piece of material is not what it appears to be on the surface and the material is totally inappropriate for a school library. In that case, yes, it is appropriate to remove materials. If it doesn't fit your material selection policy, get it out of there."
books that are challenged by parents and then the books are taken out of librarys, is still having censorship in the library. and it does happen. people challenge books that are in librarys and then the librarys quietly remove the books from the collection. that is censorship. it is the suppression of speech. and just because judith krug says it's ok to removel materials from library's does not mean it is.
also, books have been refused to be sold by different companies. read: http://mollietherose.blogspot.com/2010/08/covers-still-matter.html
You go girl. Just because nobody has banned a book in the USA for about half a century, doesn't mean it isn't a good idea to bring attention to the issue and to reading in general.
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