Speak contest is over!

Hey all!

Thanks for responding to my blog & giving such wonderful views on censorship, banning, & what you think about all of it! You guys all made my first Banned Book Week posts so much fun!

Now for the winner:

The winner is Inspired Kathy! I really liked your post- it made me think about stuff that I hadn't really considered before!

Contact me at geniebrownhair (at) hotmail.com with your information & I'll mail the books out as soon as possible!

Everyone, check back soon for another giveaway! I've got a ton of ARCs here that I'd love to send out to everyone!

Banned Book Week: Protecting even the books you don't like

Hi everyone!

I discovered an article today that brought up a really wonderful point about book banning. Most can see why some books should never be banned, but what about those books that people assume were written out of hate, anger, or ignorance?

The Christian Science Monitor brought up a list of books that they think are five of the most offensive books out there. Their list is as follows:

1) Mein Kamph by Adolph Hitler.
2) Messages to the World by Osama Bin Laden
3) The Global Bell Curve by Richard Lynn
4) Did Six Million really Die? by Richard E. Harwood
5) The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade

I have to admit, I'd be lying if I said that the topics of some of those books didn't make me feel like throwing them into a pit & burying them forever, especially Harwood's book that denies the entire Holocaust.

But even so, I have to keep reminding myself that banning one book could start an exceedingly slippery slope. If we censor or ban one person's opinion (no matter how much we disagree with it), then it might not be too long before others' opinions follow as well.

Banned Book Week: Those who fight against banning

Today I came across a really well written article by Eugenia Kim. In it Kim described how her father Jacob Kim, an immigrant from Korea, stopped a school from banning several books that many of the other parents found offensive.

The time period for this was the 60s & the books in question were The Little Red Book and The Communist Manifesto. While Jacob Kim had every reason to say that he wanted those books banned, he insisted that the books be taught.

"When he said reading breeds intelligence and understanding, not ignorance, treason, fear or hatred, they understood."

I just had to add this to my BBW blog posts- this really was a wonderful story. I hope more people post about how they or their parents helped to keep a book on the shelves of a school.

Win a copy of Laurie Halse Anderson's SPEAK!

Greetings, fellow book fans!

In honor of Banned Book Week & especially because there are idiots out there that would ban this book from schools, I'm giving away a free copy of the platinum edition of SPEAK. That's right, you can own a copy of the book that's causing all of this fuss.

Not only that, but I'm also giving out an advance reader's copy of Sarah Mlynowski's Gimme a Call. While this is already available on shelves, the copy I have is a reader copy that was only circulated to bookstores, reviewers, & such.

Already have one or both of these books? That's OK- enter anyway & pass this awesome book along to one of your friends!

To enter the contest, just post to this blog by October 4th (next monday) & give some love to both of these great authors or talk about your feelings about book banning! In about a week I'll choose one of the posters & mail them their free books! If you see your name in next week's blog, just drop me an e-mail at geniebrownhair (at) hotmail.com!

Banned Book Week: Laurie Halse Anderson's SPEAK is pornography?

If yesterday's blog post about the Stockton school district banning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian didn't convince you that book censorship & banning wasn't still alive, today's post hopefully will.

In Missouri there's a man who thinks that the horrifying rape scenes in SPEAK are soft core pornography. The sad thing is that this guy (Wesley Scroggins) is a college professor. He believes that schools shouldn't have anything dealing with sexual themes in their textbooks or in their library. The author of SPEAK herself had to speak out against Scroggins' accusations. Sadly it isn't the first time her book has come under fire from people unwilling to have their children get challenged by work that dares to tell them that *gasp* not only does sex happen, but rape happens as well.

I just have to wonder at Scroggins' opinion that students shouldn't have books with sexual themes in their schools. Seriously? I grew up in a pretty normal "whitebread" area where the biggest problems at my schools were the big test & whether or not Johnny FootballHero would ask us to the prom or not. Yet we still had sex & rape happen, even in middle school. Heck, I remember having a pregnant 13 year old in one of my middle school classes. We didn't often see such obvious signs of sexual goings on, but we knew they happened. I lived in a "nice" area, but I knew people who didn't & the sex & rape problems in their school were much more visible.

I do respect that he has an opinion but I think he's being incredibly moronic about this. Kids have sex & unfortunately, some of those kids will be raped in their lifetime. I wish that there was such a world where hiding our children away from sex & sexual themes would protect them & not stunt their learning, but this isn't that type of world. I'm not saying that kids should be reading the Marqui DeSade, but reading SPEAK would be something I'd recommend. Not only will it show them that they can & should speak up about such things but also that these things DO happen & what the victims of such crimes are going through mentally & physically.

Anderson points out on her website that Scroggins attends a school that's under two hours away, which makes her fear that his words might catch on with some of the citizens & unfortunately end up with the book getting banned in some schools.

That, dear readers, will be a sad day for students & kids everywhere. Not only will Scroggins be sending out the message that they shouldn't talk about rape, but also sending out the message that it's OK to tell people what they can & cannot do.

If you want to complain directly to Scroggins' opinion piece, you can find that here.

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.

Banned Book Week: Book banning at Kuwait's International Book Fair

Happy Banned Book Week everyone!

I was thinking that along with trying to draw notice to books here in the USA that people have tried to ban, we should also remember to look outwards to other countries who do their own book banning.

If you haven't heard, the Kuwaiti government recently decided to ban a number of books from being shown at their annual International Book Fair this year. Publishers are being told that they're not allowed to bring certain books that the government thinks offend Kuwaiti principles.

Isn’t it frightening to think that there are still governments that have the freedom to tell you what you should & shouldn’t be reading? If you aren’t scared then you should be. Freedom of speech is one of our most valuable rights & everyone should be allowed to exercise it.

You or I might not have any control over what happens in other countries but we should at least be aware of what is going on. If all we do is ignore such problems then it makes it all too easy for us to ignore it if it begins to happen to us.

Banned Books Week: Operation Dark Heart by Anthony Shaffer

Sometimes the people trying to keep a book off the shelves only want it banned because they think it contains material that is overly adult & is offensive to them in some format. Other times people try to keep it off the shelves because it contains something they think is dangerous to the country.

Author & Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer wrote a book about his time in Afghanistan, intending to get it published. However before the first printing even hit the shelves, the US military demanded that the book be reclaimed & destroyed because it contained highly sensitive material. Part of the material deemed too sensitive was supposedly a meeting between Shafer & Philip Zelikow (Director of the 9/11 Commission), where Shafer informed him about the threat & identity of one of the 9/11 terrorists. Information that according to an article on AllVoices was already made public not in the 9/11 documents released, but by Representative Curt Weldon in 2005 & 2006.

The ridiculous part? The military had previously OK’d the book to be released. Now the military is saying that while Shaffer had cleared the book with one part of the army, he didn’t clear it with the army in general as well as the Department of Defense.

Want to read it? Well, you’ll get your chance because there will be a second printing, albeit one with all of the sensitive material blacked out. According to one article by CNN International, “From single words and names to entire paragraphs, blacked out lines appear throughout the book's 299 pages.”

While this isn’t entirely a banned book, it is something that shouldn’t be ignored. We should always be conscious of when something is censored, no matter what the reason is- regardless of whether such actions are for our own safety or not.

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.