BAN THIS and BANNED BOOK CHALLENGE

BAN THIS - check it out!! Visit Donna at Bites to join in this celebration of our freedom to read. If you are planning on posting anything about Banned Books Week on your blog, please visit her and leave a link so others can check out what you have to say.

BANNED BOOKS READING CHALLENGE -

While you are thinking about this very important topic, please visit Steph Sue Reads and join the reading challenge that goes along with Ban This! You should pledge to read seven banned books in seven weeks. You provide a link on her blog and then post links to your reviews and any other information you might have on this one link...anyway, sounds like a great challenge. Here is my initial list:

• Go Ask Alice
• TTYL
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Olives Ocean
• TBA
• TBA
• TBA

So everyone who wants to show support for librarians, book store owners, publishers, principals, teachers, friends, and readers - sign up now and read some banned books!

Donna also provides this fantastic proclamation and as a librarian I think I should also make the pledge:

Banned Books Week Proclamation

WHEREAS, the freedom to read is essential to our democracy, and reading is among our greatest freedoms; and

WHEREAS, privacy is essential to the exercise of that freedom, and the right to privacy is the right to open inquiry without having the subject of one's interest examined or scrutinized by others; and

WHEREAS, the freedom to read is protected by our Constitution; and

WHEREAS some individuals, groups, and public authorities work to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries of materials reflecting the diversity of society; and

WHEREAS, both governmental intimidation and the fear of censorship cause authors who seek to avoid controversy to practice self-censorship, thus limiting our access to new ideas; and

WHEREAS, every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of American society and leaves it less able to deal with controversy and difference; and

WHEREAS, Americans still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression, and can be trusted to exercise critical judgment, to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe, and to exercise the responsibilities that accompany this freedom; and

WHEREAS, intellectual freedom is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture; and

WHEREAS, conformity limits the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend; and

WHEREAS, the American Library Association's Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year as a reminder to Americans not to take their precious freedom for granted; and

WHEREAS, Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that LibrarysCat celebrates the American Library Association's Banned Books Week, September 25th to October 2nd, and be it further

RESOLVED, that LibrarysCat encourages all libraries and bookstores to acquire and make available materials representative of all the people in our society; and be it further

RESOLVED, that LibrarysCat encourages free people to read freely, now and forever.

Adopted by Donna at Bites
8/14/10
Connecticut

Adopted by Donna at LibrarysCat
9/3/2010
Florida