“You never really understand another person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” (Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird) Just about two weeks ago, Ellen Oh, the President of We Need Diverse Books, wrote a letter about how much better the … Continue reading Why We Need Diverse Books
This is the text of a letter written by Ellen Oh, the president of We Need Diverse Books, on November 9, 2016 Dear WNDB team members, Advisory Board and liaisons, Many of us are hurting deeply this morning. Feeling betrayed, lost, hopeless. We have just been told in the most devastating manner that our lives, … Continue reading A Letter from the President of We Need Diverse Books
In 2014, Librarian Emily Knox set out to understand why people challenge, and attempt to ban, books, as part of her research for the book that would become Book Banning in 21st-century America. She sat down with people who challenged books, and got them to discuss what drove them to make a case for banning a book … Continue reading Banned Books Week & #WeNeedDiverseBooks
It’s a big week in bookland, dear readers. Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and … Continue reading It’s Banned Books Week!
While the Free For All is a fairly new outlet that expresses love of literature of all kinds, including diverse literature, banned books and literature that doesn’t necessarily share a viewpoint with us, Banned Books Week has been pushing diversity in literature and fighting challenges to books for the past 34 years. Initially started by … Continue reading Saturdays @ the South: Celebrating Banned Books
In honor of Banned Book Week, today, we take a look at five books that have recently been officially challenged or publicly denounced, and their authors responses to them, and why #weneeddiversebooks in our lives, and in our libraries: Eleanor and Park: When it was first released in 2013, Rainbow Rowell’s first YA novel got a huge … Continue reading Five Book Friday: The Banned Books Week Edition
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