Tomorrow starts an annual event that all libraries should celebrate: Banned Books Week. In 1982, a group of people noticed an alarming number of books that were being banned or challenged and began a nationwide movement that is delightfully contrary: the celebration of banned and challenged books. Thus began Banned Books Week, a non-profit organization … Continue reading Don’t Read This!! A Saturdays @ the South primer on Banned Books Week.→
Writing to your favorite authors is a great idea, no matter the time of year or the occasion. Authors, like all of us, like to hear that their work has had a positive impact on the world and on readers, specifically. This can be especially difficult if an author’s book has been challenged or banned. … Continue reading The Dear Banned Author Letter Writing Campaign→
2018 is a year for expanding our reading horizons, and we here at the Free for All are thrilled to be bringing you suggestions and discussions based on two different reading challenges. This week, we’re looking at Scholastic’s Reading Resolution Challenge. It’s a challenge geared towards younger readers, but since when should that stop anyone? … Continue reading Resolve to Read 2018: Books With Imaginary Languages→
Now, don’t get us wrong, beloved patrons–we have any number of sensational new books that are quite eager to join you this crisp autumn weekend for any adventures (or blanket-fort hiding) in which you care to indulge. But this week, in honor of Banned Book Week, we thought it might be fun to introduce you … Continue reading Five (Banned) Book Friday!→
This past week, various social media channels exploded over a controversy about the representation of marginalized children in literature. Some were saying that there are plenty of books out there about diversity, while many others decried that, despite what is out there already, there are not nearly enough. I won’t reproduce the arguments or participants here, … Continue reading Saturdays @ the South: Diversity in Books→
When we talk about Banned Books, we very often talk about the people who attack books, and the people (or institutions) who actually ban them. But we also need to consider the readers from whom these books are taken. In reading more about banned books and their impact, it becomes apparent very quickly how desperately these … Continue reading Sherman Alexie on fighting monsters: A Banned Book Week Post→
Today’s post comes to you via Letters of Note, a stunningly wonderful blog that celebrates all forms of written communications, from letters to postcards to faxes to notecards. A post from 2012 showcases a letter from Kurt Vonnegut, author of, among other seminal works, Slaughterhouse-Five. Perhaps Vonnegut’s most well-known work, Slaughterhouse-Five (published in 1969) tells the … Continue reading “I am very real”: Being an author of a banned book→
"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." ~Frederick Douglass
