Nonews

I have not heard anything about the challenge to TWISTED in Kentucky yet.

This week’s entries at A.Word.A.Day all deal with censorship. (Thanks to a friend in Maine for the tip!)

And this was sort of buried in Tuesday’s post. "The Kids’ Right to Read project is a collaboration of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which offers support, education, and advocacy to people facing book challenges or bans and engages local activists in promoting the freedom to read."  [text from their website]

If you are a reader upset with a censorship issue in your school, an educator who knows of a book being challenged, or anyone else who has to deal with attempts to ban books, check out the KRRP website.

Off to try and write now.

4 Replies to “Nonews”

  1. That’s tough you haven’t heard yet. At least they’re carefully considering the issue, which is always a good idea.

    In other news, I just found this unsettling bit about Ellen Hopkins, whose books are also being challenged.

    The poem she wrote is rather bitter, but I can’t say I blame her.

  2. I know the feeling…

    Laurie,

    I know the feeling. It seems that anything written honestly poses a threat to some people. My novel SAVED BY THE MUSIC has endured criticism before even being officially released, due to one sentence an eighteen year old boy said: “Jesus f—ing Christ; what the f— is wrong with you?” Apparently you can’t use the name Jesus without people flipping completely, even though teens say it all the time. What’s worse, I was hit by friendly fire – people in my own writing group! Now I know controversy can be a good thing, but I didn’t want my novel to be known as the “Jesus f—ing Christ book,” so I changed it to “May I ask: What the f— is wrong with you?” I actually like this better.

    While in the MFA writing program at The New School I wrote a novel called EVOLUTION, which won their chapbook award and was heralded by the judge, Daniel Ehrenhaft. Despite this and much other praise,it’s been rejected by the major publishers. Every editor has said that they loved it, and were affected by it. One told me that I’d written “the great American tragedy with Shakespearean overtones.” But the theme is so controversial and the writing is so raw and real that they felt they would meet too many obstacles trying to market it. This is what I mean: honesty is threatening. Perhaps this is because these protesting adults realize that once young readers are exposed to realism, they will be less likely to accept hackneyed indoctrinations, and may become (perish the thought) free thinkers. Or, even worse, maybe these adults will be forced to wake up and question their own dogma.

    Congratulations to you for fighting the good fight, and maybe paving the way for upstarts like me 😉

    You rule,
    Selene Castrovilla

  3. We had to do a Banned Books Week display at my store last night, and even though your books weren’t on the list we had, I made sure at least Speak made it up there. Looks like we’re out of Twisted. We put them up there to bring attention to the fact that book banning is still going on, hopefully the message gets spread that this is bad!

  4. SPEAK prominent in my son’s classroom!

    Good news, I went to back to school night in West Hempstead, NY, and my son’s tenth grade honors English class had a prominent display of SPEAK set up right where you walk in. I spoke with the school librarian, who said she loves (and has) all your novels and would never consider banning them.

    Incidentally, we have something in common: Michael Morgenstern illustrated the cover of my new novel SAVED BY THE MUSIC. His work is so beautiful, isn’t it?

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