Alice Malsenior Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Putnam County, Georgia. She was the youngest of eight children born to Willie Lee Walker, a sharecropper whom Alice described as “wonderful at math but a terrible farmer,” and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant, who supplemented the family’s income by working as a maid. Alice grew up during … Continue reading Banned Books Week: “Great Literature is help for humans.”
If it hasn’t yet become apparent, we here at the Free For All have many opinions about books, banned books, and the attempt to ban books, many of which have been aired, and many of which are still in the cupboard. But this is the first year that Banned Books Week has officially become international. … Continue reading Banned Books Week: ‘Dangerous Books’ around the World
John Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1942. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire, he published his first book, Setting Free the Bears in 1968. He studied with Kurt Vonnegut at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, but, as his books continued to meet with great critical reception–and very little money, he … Continue reading Banned Books Week: “Real readers finish books, and then judge them”
It’s a dangerous world out there for books, dear readers. Not only for their easily-damaged covers, or for their fragile pages, but for their words and ideas as well. Every year in the United States, the American Library Association deals with hundreds of “challenges” to material in both public and school libraries. A “challenge”, technically speaking, … Continue reading Banned Books Week 2016
Banned Book Week is drawing to a reluctant close, but since it’s our day to highlight books on the library shelves, and we are little literary rebels, I thought we could use this time to hear a few more authors talk about the importance of books; of allowing readers to think for themselves, to read … Continue reading Five Book Friday: The Banned Books Week Edition
In 2010, Courtney Summers published a book titled Some Girls Are. The novel tells the story of Regina, a member of her high school’s most elite and vicious peer group–until she reports a sexual assault involving her best friend’s boyfriend. Then Regina finds out what it’s like to be on the outside, on the receiving end … Continue reading “Some Girls Are”…A success story for Banned Books Week
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.(Oscar Wilde) There are any number of topics one can address when one sits down to write about Banned Books Week. We can talk about who bans books, why they want those specific books banned, or how librarians, booksellers, and educators respond to those reasons. … Continue reading Banned Books Save Lives