Banned Books Week

This week is Banned Book Awareness Week - I added the awareness part since otherwise it sounds like it's promoting the banning of books. I think there are enough people challenging the content of books already.

At the Anderson's YA Lit Conference last Saturday, at the opening of the event we gathered together to read this manifesto aloud, written by author Ellen Hopkins. (It's supposed to be posted on youtube's banned book blog channel but I can't find it!)

Manifesto

 To you zealots and bigots and false

patriots who live in fear of discourse.

You screamers and banners and burners

who would force books

off shelves in your brand name

of greater good.

You say you’re afraid for children,

innocents ripe for corruption

by perversion of sorcery on the page.

But sticks and stones to break

bones, and ignorance is no armor.

You do not speak for me,

and will not deny my kids magic

in favor of miracles.

You say you’re afraid for America,

the red, white and blue corroded

by terrorists, socialists, the sexually

confused. But we are a vast quilt

of patchwork cultures and multi-gendered

identities. You cannot speak for those

whose ancestors braved

different seas.

You say you’re afraid for God,

the living word eroded by Muhammed

and Darwin and Magdalene.

But the omnipotent sculptor of heaven

and earth designed intelligence.

Surely you dare not speak

for the father, who opens

his arms to all.

A word to the unwise.

Torch every book.

Char every page.

Burn every word to ash.

Ideas are incombustible.

And therein lies your real fear.

-Ellen Hopkins

Wow.

For a little lighter fare, I was very amused by Forever Young Adult about their tounge-in-cheek choices for which YA books that should be challenged.