Ban This! - Arizona, You Hurt My Brain

There is absolutely no denying that the political climates of Connecticut and Arizona are about as opposite as Mitt and Obama in nearly every aspect of what could be construed as politics.  I have my political opinions and while I sit firmly on my fence of independence I can't help but laugh at some of the immense crazy coming out of my new home state.  There was a lot of crazy in my old home state but the Brewertopia I'm living in now is a whole different level of crazy.

See, Arizona has a hyperactive legislature and while that can pump out some shit that does make sense, like the Stupid Motorist Law, that a place like Connecticut is too much of a goddamn hippie to hold people responsible for their own idiocy to enact, we also get mind-numbing laws that make women perpetually pregnant and white-washes school curriculums.

Arizona is a border state.  There is nothing short of a cataclysmic tectonic event that'll change that.  That means there is a lot of ethnic diversity in this state, much to the chagrin of many people, especially the people in power.  Wherever you stand on the immigrant debate, this is a nation built by a melting pot of nationalities and while there is an illegal immigrant issue, especially here, that doesn't mean that ALL minorities are illegal and it doesn't mean that we should put the kibosh on ethnic diversity.  If you take a look at this list you'll be able to pick up a theme rather quickly.

Why?  Why is the state of Arizona going so far as to completely snuff out ethnic reading?  Arizona is squatting on a rather large plot of Indian and Mexican land.  I could get into how they were here first and the American settlers pushed them out and whatnot but that's not the argument (because, let's face it, imposing empires don't have a history of asking for things nicely).  White people are not native out here regardless of who took what from whom.  While I don't agree with encouraging illegal immigration I don't believe in discouraging ethnic education.

Arizona has this odd fear of a minority uprising and a usurpation of power found, obviously, in them reading books with words about non-whites in them.  HB 2281 expressly forbids "courses or classes that . . . are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group." THIS IS FOR REAL.  Read the bill and marvel at how far your eyes will cross.  The way this bill is being enforced is shutting down culturally diverse programs in schools and removing ethnic reading material from school classrooms and libraries for the sake of . . . what?  To promote equality in our schools?  By removing all culturally diverse texts from the rooms?  We learn about pilgrims in history until our damn eyes bleed.  As someone coming from New England that's a pretty poignant part of my area history (and of course the country's).  The settling of the American southwest would be a bit different.  Imagine living in New York City and not reading about the Harlem Renaissance because it was too far leaning towards one ethnicity.  No Langston Hughes for you.

No, I don't believe the overthrow of the US government should be taught in classrooms.  That's only slightly treasonous.  If this is to be believed that was one of the catalysts to the bill itself, the WAY some of these books were being taught.  Okay, so REFORM THE TEACHING.  Don't crush the entire program and remove the books because the teachers are supposedly sending bad messages.  And guys, if a book is removed from a classroom and thus removing students' access to it, it's banned.  If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's probably not a hippopotamus.

Sherman Alexie is no stranger to being banned in the fine state of Arizona and a channel has popped up on YouTube reading out books on Arizona's banned list.  No, I don't believe tax payer money should go to fund the upbringing of a generation of anarchists but at the same time if people are driving like shitbags you're not about to ban cars, are you?  No.  Have people learned nothing from banning books?  Have they not learned that banning them will only make them more desirable?  By removing them from schools those with enough want will just seek them out on their own?  History should not be removed from the classrooms and alternate views of history should be taught to get a more well-rounded view of the event in question.

This is rightly the second wave of the Civil Rights Movement (that Hannity article made that abundantly clear to me).  Voices are trying to be silenced.  Why?  How will that benefit anyone?  They'll find a way to speak one way or another.  Let history be taught.  Allow students access to all types of books suitable to their ages.  If the way these books are being taught is such a problem, how about keeping a closer eye on the teachers themselves instead of punishing the students?  All this looks like now is a sanitizing of the history of Arizona and of cultural diversity in general.  You're not oppressed or at a disadvantage.  Who's teaching you these things?  Seriously . . .  We're not all white WASPs bred from Europe.  To try and crush anything else is a bit of a disservice to, you know, a good chunk of the population.

Ban This! 2012

Holy crap.  Year four of Ban This!  (2009, 2010, 2011)  Out of the four years I've done this I've been able to actively participate in my own event twice.  In 2010 I was away on vacation for half the month and this year I'm making a meager 2,500 mile move across the country so needless to say I will be a bit pre-occupied.  Just not pre-occupied enough to forget Ban This!  No way.

Ban This! is me taking it upon myself to extend ALA's Banned Books Week for the entire month of September to bring awareness to all that is ridiculous about banning books.  That's not to say it can't be done throughout the year because banners never sleep but September seems like a good month to use as a focus what with the event at the end of the month and schools just starting up and all.  To me it just wouldn't feel like September without some mention of book bannings and challenges.

Nothing extensive is required of anyone that wants to participate in Ban This!  By attaching the badge to your site you're promising to promote banned and challenged books in some fashion throughout the month of September however you see fit.  In the past I've reviewed banned and challenged books, had authors guest post about banned books in general and, in some cases, their own banned books, waxed poetic about the wankery of book banning, among other things.  The point is to not be silenced, to not let the cranky, petulant few that insist on parenting EVERYONE rip books out of the hands of children (and adults!) for their own selfish reasons.

I'm a little upset that I need to step back from my own event this year but I know, as book bloggers, this is something we won't stay silent about, whether it's as part of Ban This! or just Banned Books Weeks in general.  Make posts, chat it up for #banthis, submit a read-out video, whatever.  Just be sure to be vocal.  Grab the button on the right and tell everyone to Ban This!  And leave me a note below just letting me know you're going to rock out with your banned books out in September.  (What'd you think I was going to say?  Perve.)

Some Final Words for Ban This!

This wraps it up for this year's Ban This!, along with Banned Books Week. Thank you to everyone who participated by posting about something banned and book-related this month and to all of the authors that stopped by and said a few words. The purpose of Ban This! is to just stick it to those that feel the need to parent the world and keep literature away from young, impressionable eyes. People need to be reminded that we're all different, we all function at different levels and we can all handle different things differently. Blanket statements are killer and I certainly don't want myself or my supposed future loinfruit wrapped up in them. Let me handle me and mine. You stick to yours. Thank you all for helping me prove that point.

So this year I'll leave you with a couple more articles that popped up in my PW scanning that I thought could add a little to the asshattery that is censorship. Enjoy!

Apparently a Russian priest feels that novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

and Vladimir Nabokov should be banned for justifying sexual perversions. I've never read ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE or LOLITA and while they sound a bit out there, they haven't persevered for this long because of their perverted nature. I wouldn't think someone so illicit would win a Nobel Peace Prize either. So I'm thinking someone's got something a little mixed up here. Granted this same church that spawned this guy claims that Russian women need to be wearing longer skirts and non-revealing clothing as well. Good luck with that, buddy.

While this article is more tongue in cheek, I'm wondering just how much of it is serious. Granted, some heinous reading choices forced upon children too early on could hinder reading but where are the parents teaching their children that there are better books in the world that they will probably like more? LORD OF THE FLIES should be stricken from reading lists? Some kids like that book. It's demented and sadistic and I'm sure a breath of fresh air compared to the likes of WUTHERING HEIGHTS for some. I guess it just goes to show how a difference of opinion can manifest itself. I had some terrible times with some books in school but others loved them. It doesn't mean I think they should be killed dead. While BEOWULF might be above the rang of some high school sophomores, others might get it. Unfortunately not every child can be catered to in school. That's where that extra reading comes in and allowing the kid to read something they actually WANT to. Funny concept, that balance.

Ban This! Author Bites - Josie Bloss

Sometimes it's all about the need for a book. Below, Josie waxes on that need. Thanks for contributing, Josie!

I have to be honest - I don't have many coherent thoughts about book banning beyond "It's so clearly stupid" and "OMG, I hope that one of my books get banned someday!"

Why would I want a clearly stupid thing to happen to one of my books? The truth is, I believe when a book gets banned it's proof that it did something right. That book reflected us back upon ourselves so precisely or poignantly or offensively that it caused some close-minded person somewhere to be so completely overwhelmed and afraid of the reality of human experience that they tried to keep it away from everyone else. For the common good, of course. I believe being banned means a writer did something spectacular.

As Oscar Wilde wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray, “The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame."

Rabid anti-book-banner/hopeful-future-banned-author that I am, I can see where this is debatable where children are concerned. Though I don't have any kids of my own, I understand the desire to keep children sheltered and safe, even if it’s played out in seemingly irrational ways.

And I can, at least, speak to my own experience. My parents wouldn't have been able to keep me away from any book even if they tried (which they didn't). As a result, my reading habits were basically feral. And yes, this meant I read The Prince of Tides when I was 12 and certainly too young to process such a mature story (though it became and remains one of my favorite books). It also meant I spent a whole summer devouring the entire V.C. Andrews oeuvre, and another summer swapping romance novels with my stepsister, and another summer hiding under the covers with some very dark horror stories that still creep me out to this day.

I was (and still am) drawn to those sorts of books - the stories that highlight the best and worst of humanity, the more extreme the better. Back then, I was trying to grow up, trying to get a grasp on the world and my place in it. I had emotions and moods in excess, as most teenagers do. And what I needed were books that reflected what I was feeling - anger and elation and depression and first love, the heights of joy and the depths of isolation and everything in between. I needed to know that I wasn’t alone, and that's what books gave me.

I feel like I’m still growing up, in fact, and I still sometimes need that sort of mirror to know that I’m not alone.

So that's why I react so badly when people try to tell teenagers, on the cusp of adulthood, what they can and can't read. Again, I suppose I can understand individual parents making entertainment decisions for their own children based on their family culture (though if those parents think they can protect their kids from every scary thing in the world, they're sadly mistaken), but I will never understand trying to take a book away from every teenager. I can't fathom the hubris of setting yourself up as a judge and jury for what is appropriate for everyone at any age.

Personally, I doubt anyone was made into a well-rounded and empathetic adult while covered in bubble-wrap and rainbows. I believe that being an adult, being a human, means recognizing the world is often a horribly dark and unfair place, filled with lots of people who think and do things differently than you. Trying to keep those facts out of the hands of teenagers, who need the truth in order to grow up, is one of the most counter-productive things I can imagine a society doing to its young people.

My next book, Faking Faith, is about a girl who becomes fascinated with a fundamentalist culture that has eliminated virtually all choices. After screwing up and going through some terrible experiences, Dylan wonders if this sheltered world where everyone follows a defined, protected and rigid path might have the answers. However, nothing is as it seems and Dylan is forced to confront some hard truths about life, and to grow up a lot as a result. If Faking Faith helps one reader feel less alone in the world, then I’ve done my job as a writer.

But if it gets banned somewhere, I’m throwing a party.

Some Banned Books Tidbits

Got a couple articles here that I think you all might get a kick out of.

First up, after 105 years on the banned list, EVE'S DIARY by Mark Twain

has made it back to the shelves in the Charlton Public Library in Charlton, Massachusetts. Better late than never, right? EVE'S DIARY is a retelling of the Garden of Eden story through the eyes of Eve. Originally banned due to it's lurid drawings (boobies!), in honor of Banned Books Week, the book was dusted off and brought back out for public viewing, simply because those images are tame compared to what we as the public see on a daily basis. Quite right. I'm wondering just how hard core the images have to be now to render a good ol' fashioned banning.

Next, the repeal of SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE's insipid ban from the Vonnegut Library (I'm wondering if the banners even saw the irony in that) ended up being pretty half assed. The book, still deemed far too inappropriate for the yoots (<--10 points for reference), is held in a locked down secure location, entombed behind 7 foot thick cement walls and infrared laser beams ready to burn your eyes out if you happen to look at it without your parents' permission. Or maybe not, but the deal is the book is available only if a kid's parent physically comes down to the library to take it out for them. As if some kind of permission slip wasn't damning enough. Mom's gotta come get it for you. Yeah, that's unbanned. O_o

Last but not least, The Uprise Books Project is all about getting banned and challenged books into the hands of underprivileged middle and high school students. Their thought process is hopefully the notion that someone else is saying these books are bad will spurn interest in reading them. Considering teens have a tendency of doing the exact opposite of what adults tell them, that's a pretty good rationale. You can donate funds and allocate them to your favorite banned book or just give funds for the greater good. So if you've got some spare change, why not give a little?

Banned Books Week's Virtual Read-Out!

In case you haven't heard, there's a read-out going on! Through the end of Banned Books Week, October 1st, you can upload a video of you reading from your favorite banned book to the Banned Books Week's YouTube Channel and join in a slew of other people in sticking it to book banners. You can find out more information, including instructions on how to upload to the channel, here.

I mentioned last month that I might be participating but ultimately I'm going to pass on this, although I wish I could do my thing for it. Mainly I'm passing because I don't have the proper equipment to do a vlog. I only have the recorder on my digital camera and that kind of sucks for things like this. Plus I'm really self conscious on screen like that. As you may have noticed, I'm not big on vlogs. Nevermind the fact that I've been doing Ban This! all month and sticking it to them banners the entire time. So I feel I'm doing my part to spread the banned books love this year.

But I encourage those of you that can to participate in the read out and join all the others that have uploaded already. Stick it to book banners!

Ban This! Author Bites - Anne Spollen

On this first day of the official Banned Books Week, Anne Spollen talks about a sneaky kind of book banning. Thanks for contributing, Anne!

“Adam was but human – this explains it all. He did not want
the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was
forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then
he would have eaten the serpent.”

– Mark Twain

Whenever I hear of books being banned, I am absolutely thrilled. I am beside myself with joy. It’s the same feeling I get when I walk past a bookstore and see a long line or when Amazon runs out of copies of a title.

By banning books, people are speaking my language. They are telling me exactly what I want to hear: that books have power, that they still matter. And that’s something I don’t hear very often.

When I tell people I would love to quit my job and just write all the time, they look at me and say what you‘ve probably heard time and again, “You want to write books? Yeah, but who reads any more? Books are just about extinct. Publishing. Heh. Now there’s a dying art.”

Well, apparently not. Enough people read to make books targets. People ban books because they are perceived as dangerous. Books are ideas. They cause change by broadening our world, our beliefs, by touching us. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing, now does it? Problem is with the word “change” -- change means deviating from the status quo and most books are banned because they upset that comfy status quo.

The type of books that are banned generally deal with sex, the occult, the paranormal, mental illness -- basically any themes that are not squeaky clean traditional. And I think most of us object to blatant banning of books and we all pretty much ignore the parent who stands up at the board meeting and hollers about Harry Potter being against Christian values. But there are more subtle ways to ban books that we have to watch out for.

I used to teach English in a school where the oldest children were fourteen. As one of two English teachers, I worked very closely with the librarian. In fact, we team taught some lessons. And we both became familiar with a small group of parents who consistently reviewed books in that library and consistently asked us to remove books dealing with frank discussions of adolescent sexual development.

Well, no, we told them. We reminded them of the guarantee of freedom of speech. We reminded them that children had to learn to make choices regarding their reading material. Did we have to remind them that we had ordered those books as a means of comforting their children as their bodies began undergoing puberty? And who among us doesn’t need comfort during that time?
They responded by going to the school board and complaining. They weren’t noisy or obnoxious; they were politely persistent. They believed that children, their children specifically, most of them already in puberty, would be harmed by reading about the very processes their bodies were undergoing.

The result? We didn’t remove the books, but signed permission slips were required in order for the children to borrow them. You can imagine how many kids wanted to bring home that permission slip for mom to sign and how many kids wanted to take out books on that “special” shelf. Indirectly, those books were banned.

Puberty, however, continued.

You don’t need bonfires or a fascist regime to attempt to control ideas: you only need a few fear-addled folks. Books are our unflinching mirrors: they show us as we are, warts and all. Books can serve as guides to understanding those warts. The power of the written word has always been to connect us through our experiences. And that‘s the kind of power that should never instigate fear.

Let the Ban This! Begin!

That's right, people. It's September 1st. Ban This! has officially begun! If you haven't signed up for it yet, why not? I guess I can forgive you but you best be doing it now. Just go here and add your site. All I'm asking you to do is to commit to talking about banned/challenged books/book banners and their asshattery during the month of September. Simple enough. A big thank you much goes over to Nicole at WORD for Teens for letting me shill my event on her blog. Head on over to her site to check out what I wrote. I think it's a nice little introduction to Ban This!

I've got some good stuff lined up for you guys this month. Along with my regular postings of reviews, Freaky Friday, 80s Awesomeness!, Things I've Learned from Books and Added to the Pile, I'll also be cramming in a shitload of book banning douchery. While I might be bleeding from the ears by the end of the month, it's still an excellent means to get one's aggression out, ranting on the dumbassitude of book banners.

I also have a hot list of authors coming by to add their two cents into my Ban This! mix. Check it out!

• Deb Caletti
• Kim Culbertson
• Sean Beaudoin
• Julie Chibbaro
• Holly Schindler
• Jonathan Maberry
• Ellen Hopkins
• JM Warwick/Jennifer Laurens
• Janet Ruth Young
• Mari Mancusi
• Josie Bloss
• Anne Spollen
• Cinda Williams Chima

If that's not a super hot list of authors, I don't know what is. So sit down, stick around and let's chat banned books!

Ban This! 2011

Oh yeah. It's that time of year again where we all band together and spend a month incessantly mocking the ridiculousness of book banning and challenging. That's right, folks. It's time again for Ban This!

Ban This! isn't anything intricate. All I've done is taken the American Library Association's Banned Books Week celebration and extended it for the entire month of September. Why? Why not? What's a week to stick it to book banners when you can have a month to make fun of them until they stomp their feet in red-faced fury? Really, it should be the whole year, as book banning douchery does not adhere to the confines of a Judeo-Christian calendar but this complements Banned Books Week so well, I just couldn't resist.

What am I asking you to do for Ban This! if you want to sign up? Not much. Just bring attention to banned books at some point during the month of September. Post reviews of books seen on the numerous banned books lists out there. Post about your experiences with banned or challenged books a la #YASaves or #SpeakLoudly. Bring attention to book banning asshattery and rant to your heart's content on how moronic these people are. Get authors on to talk about their books being banned. Anything to do with banned books works. There aren't any frequency requirements, no totals that you have to hit. If you're going to talk about banned and/or challenged books or banning bumfuckery or any general idiocy surrounding censorship and reading, sign up, grab the button, spread the Ban This! love.

If you find censorship of the book variety to be even nominally stifling, sign up for Ban This! If you feel parents should stick to parenting their own children, sign up for Ban This! If you think kids shouldn't be chastised for reading, sign up for Ban This! Let's all band together and tell those censorship nazis to stick it, to BAN THIS! If you're so willing, please help me get the #banthis hashtag started on Twitter and don't forget to grab the button to the left.

To register, just drop your name in the link widget below. If you have any questions, just holler. If you're good to go, I look forward to shouting BAN THIS, MOFOS!, with you in September.

Banned Books Read-Out!

It's absolutely not too early to start talking about ALA's Banned Books Week and my own personal Ban This!, an annual month-long celebration of all things banned books (check out 2009 and 2010). Book banning and challenging is a year-round activity for those that insist on doing such things so really, any time is the right time for pointing out the asshattery of book banning.

This year, a special YouTube channel is being created so that anyone with a video camera, from any location, can upload themselves reading an excerpt from their favorite banned book and have it be slapped together in one giant F-U to the book banners. While I'm not a vlogger (I've only done it once), you may just see my lovely mug right here on this site reading from a banned book. I mean, how can I pass something like this up?

So expect that, along with other book banning mockery in the month of September. I'll be posting the sign-up post for Ban This! towards the end of August. I'm not sure of Steph Su will be doing the Banned Books Reading Challenge again this year but if she doesn't, I hope someone will. As book lovers, we need to stick it to the banners every chance we get!

ttyl by Lauren Myracle

First published 2004.

On the first day of tenth grade, best friends Maddie (mad maddie), Angela (SnowAngel), and Zoe (zoegirl) vow not to let school stupidness get them down . . . or split them apart. But as the weeks pass and the instant messages accumulate, it's clear that tenth grade will be a roller coaster ride of boy temptation, math torture, donut emergencies, and Queen Bee encounters. Then a jerky boy sends peppy Angela into the dumps, tough Maddie makes a mistake that has the whole school talking, and good girl Zoe gets in over her head with a flirty teacher. Will the winsome threesome make it through the year? (book back blurb)

I bought ttyl from a library book sale simply because it was on a banned books list and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

While I liked the execution of the story (complete IM chats), I found the overall plot kind of bland. It succeeded in that I felt like I was reading the chat transcripts of a bunch of real life teens but I think it's because of that that I was just bored with it. It came complete with its own high school drama and even though I only had the points of view of these three girls, I still felt the anger, the love, the awkwardness and everything else they were feeling. I felt like I was eavesdropping in on their conversations. I just didn't find it particularly interesting. Compelling enough but I'm not rarin' to read ttfn or anything.

In terms of banned bookage, of course it's rather insipid. There was a mention of female ejaculation. For shame! A natural bodily function! What's next, farts? And then there was a brother's girlfriend's unshaven muffin popping out of a bikini. That one had me gagging. Respect your fellow man, lady! And you had your token sex talks and swear but no teenage conversation would be complete without those things. An awkward and inappropriate student/teacher relationship was even thrown in too. Apparently the text speak is an issue but I'm not sure how that's even ban-worthy. OMG they're spelling laugh like laff! The horror! When the challengers can speak, write and spell in proper English, then I'll give them some leeway. Until then, they can shut their holes.

I don't see anything ban-worthy in this book. If parents are up in arms about female ejaculation, what's next? Denying their daughters information on their periods? Let's not stifle a teen's need to ask questions. Parents are supposed to be there to answer them, not keep them in the dark. They're failing as parents if they keep their kids ignorant.

Is Challenging Books a Good Thing?

If you take a look at this article, you'll see that it's not pushing the removal of books from shelves but the act of challenging the books kids are reading. The argument is that more parents should be challenging books because of content. Once the challenging stops, it shows a lack of caring and concern on the parents' part that their children are reading such questionable material like The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird.

I could half understand the reasoning if parents were actually reading the books they were challenging but they're not. It's evident by the reasons they're citing to have these books removed. Twilight as sexually explicit? Can I put the moron stamp on your forehead?

When I was in sixth grade my mom petitioned to have a book removed from a reading list. Not the school itself. Not even a single library. Just the reading list. I was in sixth grade and it was a John Saul book. Her reasoning? She'd read the book and it gave her nightmares. She didn't feel it was appropriate to recommend eleven-year-olds read this book. I get that. It wasn't ripped from the library. It was just deleted off of a reading list. But the biggest part is that she's actually read the book and could voice genuine concern. These other parents? The ones that get Ellen Hopkins disinvited from a teen lit fest, don't. They hear things from other people about things that may or may not be in the book that they don't like. They don't actually take the time to read it themselves and form their own opinions on it.

That article also points out ttyl by Lauren Myracle being challenged because parents don't like the text speak in it. The text speak isn't the concern parents would have with that book. It's female ejaculation, teen sex, private parts. Please, read the books if you're going to point out "why" they're being challenged.

So do parents challenging books show that they care what their children are reading? I don't think so. It's not like they're reading it to find out for themselves. If they cared about what their children read, then they'd keep it to just their children. They wouldn't try to have books ripped entirely out of school curriculums, torn from library shelves and authors banned from speaking. That's not concern. That's psychosis.

You know what I think of when I thing of a book challenge-free world? Utopia. It means the banners have finally gotten it and kept it in the damn family like it should be. So Holden orders a prostitute. Like a thirteen-year-old today hasn't seen his fair share of beaver shots online. With webcams, it's not hard to see it live either. No books required. What's okay for one kid might not be okay for another but what one parent feels shouldn't dictate the access other parents might otherwise grant to their children.

Lock your kid up in a bubble for all I care. But my kid will read whatever the hell he wants. Why? Because he's fucking reading. In a world where we're constantly fighting for their attention between TV, iPods, cell phones and computers, the fact that they're picking up a book at all is a glorious thing. I don't think they're going to become sex addicted crack heads from reading a book. I'd like to think parents would keep channels of communication open should their kids have any questions about what they're reading. Instead of shutting them out and blocking their access, use it as a means to engage and educate. God forbid parents do that with their children nowadays, right? Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil is the way to go.

Until that Utopia can be reached, we're still going to have to deal with things like The Diary of Anne Frank being banned from a certain school district and an author getting banned for a book he didn't even write. This isn't caring. This is idiocy. And it needs to stop.

Sticking It To Banned Books

Right now we live in a world where a dictionary can get banned because of the definition it gives. No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I did die on the inside when I read about that.

We also live in a world where somehow, some way, the few voices of the minority outweigh those of the majority and can get the likes of Ellen Hopkins disinvited from a teen lit fest in Texas. Seriously, are we at all surprised that this happened in Texas? And thanks to that bonehead move, a bunch of other authors pulled themselves out of the event in protest. Way to go, you anal-retentive librarian. You just fucked over a bunch of kids.

But despite all of this, there are people out there that really want to grind the salt into the wound these book banners try to make. And damn, do they do a good job doing it.

Americus, a graphic novel about a teen boy fighting to keep one of his favorite books on the shelves against the ills of the protesters, is going to get a heap of promotion during Banned Books Week at the end of the month. I mean, why not? It pokes the banners in the eyes directly. And watch, I'm sure they'll try to get this one banned too on some ridiculous claim that it's insensitive or makes someone look fat or whatever. Go MK Reed and First Second. I salute you.

And to the jackasses that actually tried to get a dictionary banned, what the fuck are you

thinking? Really? It's a dictionary. For the love of god, your kid's going to go have sex for the first time and is going to end up trying to fuck someone's foot. Would you just talk to your children at the very least to prevent athlete's foot of the crotch?

I mean, this was from a fifth grade class. I remember when I was in fifth grade we had this huge sex education unit that PARENTS ACTUALLY CAME ALONG TO. Oh my god, what a concept. Parents educating their children side-by-side. Novel! What is so wrong with having a conversation with your kid? Honestly. Chances are, if you explain what oral sex is to a twelve-year-old, they're going to think it's gross. But isn't it better to explain to them what it is than have them find out first hand? Let's think about that one for a second.

If you want your kid to be horribly sheltered and lose their virginity via their ear or nostril, then by all means, you go ahead and do that. You'll end up with a forty-year-old sweater-wearer that works at Target and lives in your basement. Who may or may not have a chronic masturbation problem. But don't subject everyone else's kids to that kind of torture. There are some parents still out there that find nothing wrong with finding definitions in dictionaries. I'm really not sure where else they'd find them, but dictionaries are usually good places to start for something like that.

And like the article said, if they're looking up the definition of oral sex, that's not the first time they've heard it. Really, it's okay. Your kid isn't going to become a fluffer slut by knowing what something is. It'll give make him or her aware of it. More educated, if you will. God forbid our children catch that, that horrid, horrible act of thinking. That's not what schools are for. They should just go back to being oversized daycares, right?

*headdesk*

My Banned Books Reading List

This will be my official post for Steph Su's Banned Books Reading Challenge, part of my month-long Ban This! event, wherein I read banned and/or challenged books for the next, well, just under two weeks. This is the only time I have to dedicate to being able to do this so I figured this little I could do was better than nothing.

I should be able to read and review two books by next Friday, and those books will be -

They've been in my pile for a few months now so what better reason to unbury them and read them up? So look for these two reviews within the next fortnight. If you haven't signed up for either Ban This! or the Banned Books Reading Challenge yet, be sure you do ASAP!

Bites and Steph Su Reads Ban Together for Ban This! and the Banned Books Reading Challenge

As if I haven't been pimping it out, Ban This! started yesterday; my month-long celebration of all that is banned books and the wankery that comes from them (or spurns them, as it were). This year, in conjunction with my banned books event, Steph Su over at Steph Su Reads is hosting The Banned Books Reading Challenge.

If you sign yourself up, you are promising to read something of the banned and/or challenged variety between September 1st and October 15th. Why is something like this so important? Simple. It shows the jerks that try to keep these kinds of books out of kids' hands that they're failing. By their incessant asshattery at attempts to purge their local libraries of such "filth," they are doing nothing more than providing free publicity and driving even more kids to read such books. Because you know kids listen when their parents say not to do something, right?

A good place to start looking for reading material if you're not sure where to find it is the ALA's Yearly Lists of Banned or Challenged Books (at the bottom of the page). You will certainly not be short of excellent books to pick up.

Personally, I'm hoping to get in one banned book read in this month. Hey, don't look at me like that. As of September 17th I am on vacation from everything, including this blog, for two weeks. That means no blog reading, reviewing or anything to do with it (I haven't stopped since I started back in January of 2009, I think I've earned my break). I have a blog tour book to read and I think I can fit in one more book after that, plus a review, before I go. That book will probably be ttyl by Lauren Myracle simply because it's in my pile and I bought it from my local library's book sale because it made the banned books list.

You know if a book lands there, it's damn good and worth reading. So pick 'em up, sign up for Steph Su's reading challenge and be sure to add your name to the Ban This! list to let everyone know that you're in it to win it this month against those neo-Nazis that want to take our words away from us.

Ban This! 2010

As you may or may not be aware, the American Library Association's Banned Books Week is from September 25th to October 2nd this year. The short of the long of Banned Books Week is basically a national, week-long celebration of those books that have been challenged and/or successfully banned across the country. This year I'm working in conjunction with Steph Su over at Steph Su Reads who's hosting a Banned Books Reading Challenge. Once you sign up here, be sure to head on over to her site and join in the reading.

People are still challenging books in this day and age, you ask? Unfortunately, yes. See, there are people out there, small-minded people that feel the need to force their feelings about certain pieces of literature on others instead of just keeping it in the family. These people are usually adamant loud mouths that, chances are, have never read the books they're challenging.

Well, how can they not like a book they haven't read, you say? Easy. They hear things. They read blurbs. Their friends tell them. And because of this you get gems like Twilight landing on the most challenged books list due to it's sexually explicit content. I'll give you a moment with that one . . . no, I'm not kidding.

So these Nazis (yes, jackwagons, you're Nazis, see photo - )


(psst . . . those people aren't waving hi to each other . . .) feel that since their children shouldn't be reading these books, no one's children should be reading these books. And it's people like Ginny Maziarka that we can thank for the awesomeness that is Banned Books Week. Ginny, without people like you, we wouldn't have such fodder and then where would that leave us? We can only blame the first round of Nazis for so long before it gets old. But thanks to the likes of this second generation, the fodder is endless.

If you were hanging around my blog last year, you'll know that I took it upon myself to extend Banned Books Week into Banned Books Month with Ban This! There's just way too much fun to cram into one week. At least for me.

The thing is, this year my vacation spans half the month of September so I won't be around to pump my blog full of bigoted housewives on steroids. So what I'm doing this year is Mr. Linky-ing it up. If you're going to be posting anything about banned books in the month of September, add your blog to this list and be sure to spread the word. Considering the relative noobness of my blog last year, Ban This! turned out pretty good. I'd like to make it even better this year.

So call in your connections with authors and publishers, fellow bloggers and even yourself. Get those posts lined up now and let's flood the book blogging community with banned books love this September! And this year I even have a pretty little Ban This! button all ready and able for you guys to grab over in the sidebar! So get your reading caps on (as if they weren't already) and stuff it to those knobs that insist on attempting to take our books away.

Resources:

American Library Association - Banned Books Week
Banned and Controversial Books
Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week Proclamation

WHEREAS, the freedom to read is essential to our democracy, and reading is among our greatest freedoms; and

WHEREAS, privacy is essential to the exercise of that freedom, and the right to privacy is the right to open inquiry without having the subject of one's interest examined or scrutinized by others; and

WHEREAS, the freedom to read is protected by our Constitution; and

WHEREAS some individuals, groups, and public authorities work to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries of materials reflecting the diversity of society; and

WHEREAS, both governmental intimidation and the fear of censorship cause authors who seek to avoid controversy to practice self-censorship, thus limiting our access to new ideas; and

WHEREAS, every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of American society and leaves it less able to deal with controversy and difference; and

WHEREAS, Americans still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression, and can be trusted to exercise critical judgment, to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe, and to exercise the responsibilities that accompany this freedom; and

WHEREAS, intellectual freedom is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture; and

WHEREAS, conformity limits the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend; and

WHEREAS, the American Library Association's Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year as a reminder to Americans not to take their precious freedom for granted; and

WHEREAS, Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that Bites celebrates the American Library Association's Banned Books Week, September 25th to October 2nd, and be it further

RESOLVED, that Bites encourages all libraries and bookstores to acquire and make available materials representative of all the people in our society; and be it further

RESOLVED, that Bites encourages free people to read freely, now and forever.

Adopted by Donna at Bites
8/14/10
Connecticut

Bye Bye to Ban This!

I recorded a vlog for this but I guess I rambled a bit too much on it. It turned out to be over 12 minutes long, was rejected by YouTube after 9 hours of uploading and processing as being too long and I can't upload it anywhere else to circumvent that. Not even to my own site storage. It's close to 400 meg and the upload limit there is 50. Great.

At this point I'm too tired and fed up with uploading to deal with it right now. If I can figure something out, I'll post it up. If not, then it'll just sit and rot on my computer because I really can't be bothered to make another one. Technology is the bane of my existence, I swear. This is why I never do vlogs. It's too much hassle!

Anyway, I've pretty much said what I can say on banned and challenged books without being redundant. At least for this year. Give me time to rest and I'll be able to rehash all of my opinions on the topic next September. And for half the month I'll be able to say it while I'm on vacation is a very sunny state.

Ultimately I've come to the conclusion that book banners and book burners are just afraid. They're afraid of knowledge and intelligence, I'm sure because they don't have it. Knowledge is power, after all, and those of us that read and are knowledgeable are deemed a threat. We threaten their Stepford lives and their implied perfection. We threaten their well-being and the innocence of their children. We threaten it all with our intelligence. Our intelligence that we've garnered from books.

It's not about what's appropriate for what age. It's about giving children too much power and if they have too much power, then they'll have the power to realize all that is being kept from them and they will dissent. The mindless are so much easier to control.

Don't be a zombie. Don't allow them to rob you of the intelligence and independent thoughts that you deserve and crave. Don't let them take away your right to become smarter than they are, although that won't take much. Books are very powerful things. Just look at the uproar they cause.

Let the fires of book passion blaze and let the reading continue.

A huge thanks to everyone that participated in Ban This! in any shape or form and we will do it all again next year! I'll see you all then!

Walking on Eggshells for Books

Reading about certain steps educators can take in an attempt to avoid backlash about books they teach in class, I ask, why? Really, in this day and age, what's the point? Aside from the fact that you can't please everyone, you can believe that you've removed every hint of controversy from your classroom but lo and behold, there's going to be at least one parent out there that's going to have some kind of problem with what it is their kids are still reading. Whether it be dead turtles or insinuated lesbian sex or whatever, someone's going to find something wrong and offensive about it no matter what you do. So what does it matter? People like to complain and if they're that adamant about it, they're going to find something, anything, to complain about.

At the end of the day, though, book burners and banners and challengers believe themselves to be eliminating some form of threat to their ways of life. They fully believe that. By removing it and, in some cases, completely destroying it, they're able to obliterate it from their sheltered world where its presence won't taint their lives anymore.

You know, I'd love to ban Glenn Beck and his idiot book from my local Borders because that was a fucking shock, like getting slapped in the face with a dead trout, running into him there but instead of picketing Borders, I just removed myself from the situation. Of course I *had* to say a few things (literally) and I shoved and dry-heaved my way out of the store (it was a damn mob scene) only to come face to giant head on the side of his damn tour bus where I heaved on a police officer's shoes and ran to my car on the other side of the very large parking lot. Had I known that tool was going to be there, I would have just avoided the store. Much to my chagrin, that idiot and his book has every right to be there. I just went across the street to the much more sedate and Beck-free Barnes and Noble. Then I came home and did an icky dance to try and rid the taint from my skin.

But many, many, many banners don't think like that. They don't think to remove themselves from the situation: they want the situation removed from them, never mind if it inconveniences everyone else. It's all about what *they* want.

And what they want is to rid their areas of these books that they've never even read. Have I ever read Glenn Beck's book? No, but I've watched his show so I know what to expect between those covers. I know the kind of opinion I'm going to get. I don't agree with his show. Why would I agree with it in book form? But the people that go out and burn Harry Potter have never read it. Ellen Hopkins's Oklahoma issue? You can pretty much guarantee that that irate parent had never read any of Ellen's books. She just heard what they were about. Such is the case in pretty much all book banning and challenge situations.

There was an issue here a few years ago where the city of Hartford wanted to re-name a local community college to Mark Twain University, considering Mr. Clemens lived up here for quite some time. The local youth chapter of the NAACP got up in arms about it. A news person asked the youth president if he'd ever read any of Mark Twain's books. He said no, that he'd never read such racist propaganda. The school's name never changed over.

What happened to "don't knock it until you try it?" If it works that way with broccoli, why doesn't it with books?

Ignorance breeds ignorance, I tell you.

Support Ellen Hopkins

As you all know, there were some shenanigans with the Norman, Oklahoma school district involving Ellen Hopkins and her books. One crazy ass parent ripped into the school, demanded Crank and Glass be removed from the library and didn't want Ellen speaking to any students in the entire school district. The psycho got her wish because the superintendent is a pussy and doesn't want to actually have a discussion about something like that and would much rather just snuff it before the flame gets too big.

So Ellen's books were banned from the library and she, as a person, was banned from the school district. Neener on them that she still spoke at a local venue but, of course, no one that made the fuss about her to begin with deigned to show up. Figures, right? Surely that wacko mom had never read any of Ellen's books either. Just found out what they were about and went on a stink about them.

Now Ellen's got a local radio personality on her ass about the good of the banning, the bad of her books and the immorality she's promoting by writing such filth. Yeah, if you're not *headdesk*ing by now, you're a better person than I am.

Now Ellen's asking for your help. Go to her blog and snag the email addresses she has listed. BE NICE and send in your reasons why Ellen is a fantastic author, why her books are encouraging and why they should remain on the shelves. The objective here is to BE NICE! Meaning, don't use coarse language. It'll pretty much invalidate your point and get your email deleted. Say what you want, but say it with class.

Yeah, this coming from me. Hey, I'm not sending the guy my blog post, am I? But be sure to send your thoughts to these guys and get your voices heard and make sure that Ellen gets her day in court. She and her books don't deserve to be treated like they have by the Norman, Oklahoma locals.

Most Excellent Banned Books Links

Dammit! Blogger has smacked right into my company's firewall. Boo. Maybe I shouldn't have started posting at work? Eh.

Anyway. here are a few brain-stimulating links about banned and challenged books I found floating around the web.

List of Banned Books by Governments

While I'm not a fan of Wikipedia because it's one of the most inaccurate encyclopedias on the web, it still provides an interesting go-through of what's been banned where and when. That is, if it's accurate.

A teen book burns at the stake

Remember that post I made about the idiots in the Midwest that not only wanted to ban Baby Be-Bop from their local library but burn it at the stake? This is an article about that very same incident from the author's, Francesca Lia Block's, point of view.

Censored

A pretty cool site on censorship and book banning. I really love the layout. It's so poignant and minimalistic but really fits with the overall theme. Trust me. You'll get it when you see it.

First Amendment Center

The legal side of book banning and how the courts pwn those morons that attempt it.

Banned Books and Censorship

Another thorough site on book banning and censorship (obviously).

Be sure to check these all out and pass them along to everyone you know. Let's maintain our freedom to read what we want, when we want.