Banned Book Week: The Stockton School Board won't let you read this...

You'd be surprised to discover that book banning does still exist in the United States. It's horrendous & stupid, but it does happen.

Earlier this year the Stockton School Board in Missouri got a call from a parent who decided that he didn't want his elementary school kids to read the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Why? Because there's mention of masturbation in the book & he didn't think his kids should read it.

Fair enough, but this man wasn't complaining about a book that his kids absolutely had to read. They could choose another book if they or the parents didn't like the content. But this guy wasn't content with that. He wanted the book removed from the library altogether.

And guess what? They banned it. Despite the ALA's attempts to persuade the school board otherwise, they recently decided to uphold their ban of this book in their school system. All because one man didn't want to explain to his children about masturbation & didn't want anyone else to have to do it either. He removed their freedom of choice.

So if you happen to live in this area & send your kids to one of the schools in this system you should buy your child a copy of this book & tell them to read it while in school.

Happy Banned Book Week!

Officially starting today & lasting until October 2nd is Banned Books Week, a week where we celebrate the books that some would have us never read. Maybe it's because they have witchcraft in them or other elements that someone might think makes for an "indecent" read.

Now when most of us think banned books, we think about the titles such as Catcher in the Rye, The Color Purple, or Lady Chatterly's Lover. We assume that the titles banned were older books & that it all happened years ago, that we wouldn't dare ban books now.

You'd be surprised at what some areas still tries to keep off their bookshelves. Would you believe that some people have tried to ban Blood & Chocolate, The Face on the Milk Carton, Harry Potter, & Twilight? Some of the groups trying to remove these books have actually succeeded, although it wasn't long before many of these books were returned to the public shelves they'd been snatched from.

That's why it's so incredibly important for us to remember Banned Book Week & to try to combat censorship by promoting our freedom to read. It's all too easy to assume that we'll never lose that right & all too easy for us to eventually lose it if we aren't careful.