Celebrating Banned Books Week!

How fantastic is it that the theme for this year's Banned Books Week (Sept. 25 - Oct. 1) is Frequently Challenged Books with Diverse Content? We are all about books with diverse content here (well, not ALL, but it's one of the themes we feature frequently), and books with difficult, important themes are often found among the banned and/or challenged book lists.

This year's list of Frequently Challenged Books with Diverse Content and more info can be found at this link, but I've also reprinted it below. How many have you read? I've only read 13! And parts of a couple others (y'know, lit class excerpts and such). It is an interesting list. Take a look, and let loose in the comments.

1. A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines
2. A Hero Ain't Nothin But a Sandwich by Alice Childress
3. A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
4. Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by  Sherman Alexie
5. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds
6. Always Running by Luis J Rodriguez
7. Am I Blue?:  Coming Out from the Silence by Marion Dane Baue
8. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
9. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Girl
10. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
11. Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X; Alex Haley
12. Baby Be-Bop by Francesca Lia Block
13. Beloved by Toni Morrison
14. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out  by Susan Kuklin
15. Black Boy by Richard Wright
16. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A Anaya
17. Color of Earth by Kim Dong Hwa
18. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
19. Drama by Raina Telgemeier
20. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
21. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
22. Geography Club by Brent Hartinger
23. George by Alex Gino
24. Habibi by Craig Thompson
25. Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman
26. Hoops by Walter Dean Myers
27. I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
28. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
29. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
30. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
31. King & King by Linda de Haan
32. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
33. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
34. Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Baldacchino
35. My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis
36. Nappy Hair by Carolivia Herron
37. Nasreen’s Secret School by Jeanette Winter
38. Palestine: A Nation Occupied by Joe Sacco
39. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
40. Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez
41. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor
42. Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
43. So Far From the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins
44. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
45. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
46. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
47. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
48. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
49. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
50. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
51. The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter
52. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
53. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
54. The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox
55. This Book is Gay by James Dawson
56. This Day in June by Gayle Pitman
57. Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan
58. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

YA Saves. That's All There Is To It.

Yep, more controversy in the YA writing world! As if you needed more. (Come on. You know you love it. NOT.)

The tagline to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Meghan Cox Gurdon reads: "Contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity. Why is this considered a good idea?" Rife! Depravity! That's right, we're a cesspool over here, just itching to inflict our negative moral values on the innocent, sponge-like brains of your children.

I couldn't bear to finish reading the article myself, but I got an excellent overview from Liz B. over at A Chair, A Fireplace, and A Tea Cozy. Liz says: "Some kids in terrible circumstances read about kids in terrible circumstances and find comfort and hope, even in the bleakest book; others live it, so don’t want to read it. Some read for windows; some, for mirrors."

Cheryl Rainfield, whose book SCARS was named in the WSJ article, had this to say: "I think what helps us bring good into the world, and stop the things that hurt people so much, is to talk about the darkness, bring it out into the open, and encourage healing, compassion, and love. Not by hiding it."

On the L.A. Review of Books blog, Cecil Castellucci said: "Gurdon’s article in the WSJ seems to imply that these kinds of dark books should be cleared off the shelf and that good clean books with less objectionable content should be there instead. And that the publishing industry, in the name of sales, pushes these kinds of books to pervier and pervier extremes and then cries censorship if called on it." She has a lot of other great stuff to say on the topic, too.

And these are far from the only voices speaking out. Check out the Twitter hashtag #YAsaves for more links and comments.

Banned Books Week: A Roundup

While you're thinking about what books you'd like to nominate for this year's Cybils, check out this roundup of Banned Books Week posts and info from around the Kidlitosphere--it's not an exhaustive list by any means, but it's got some interesting tidbits that I either ran across on my own or that were passed along to me throughout the week. Enjoy, and here's to expanding our own reading horizons and teaching our children to actively read and think for themselves!

•  First, I have to thank the good folks at First Second for the fabulous animated GIF over there, featuring characters from one of their upcoming graphic novels, Americus--"about Neil Barton, a teenager growing up in Oklahoma, and his fight to keep his favorite fantasy series, The Chronicles of Apathea Ravenchilde, in his public library." I'm already looking forward to it--check out the webcomic version here.
  
• Via NPR comes an interactive Google map of every location in the country where books have been banned.
• Via Leila at Bookshelves of Doom comes the news that--during Banned Books Week, no less--The Hunger Games was challenged.
• Children's author Lucy Coats, at her blog Scribble City Central, discusses the challenge to Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak and relates her own feelings with heartfelt and wrenching honesty. In a follow-up post, she discusses the amazing reaction to her initial post, and shares a striking poem about book banning by Ellen Hopkins.
• Cybils YA panelist Ami Jones, of Three Turtles and Their Pet Librarian, discusses their library's Banned Books Gala (something I dearly wish our library could have had!), the challenge to Hunger Games, and more.
• Guys Lit Wire contributors post recommendations of some of their favorite banned books.
• Author Cheryl Rainfield discusses banned books in the wake of various recent challenges to YA books and authors, and relates a wealth of links on the topic.
• Angela Peña Dahle of A Pen in Neverland--a brand-new-to-me blog--fun!--discusses her feelings about book banning and invites your comments on her Workshop Wednesday feature (how neat is that??).
• The redoubtable Ms. Camille of BookMoot is quoted in a TIME magazine article about the Ellen Hopkins-disinvited-from-Humble-Teen-Lit-Fest incident.
• Alex at The Children's War (another blog that's new to me) discusses the classic Summer of My German Soldier in admirable depth, and I learned that this is one of three WWII-themed books for children that have been banned (both recently and repeatedly).
• Ellen Hopkins' excellent anti-censorship manifesto for the Huffington Post includes her poem referenced above, her story about the Humble Teen List Fest, and more.
• Sheryl McFarlane, on her Book Blog, talks about some of the more laughter-inducing reasons for book banning, as well as linking to an excellent Banned Books quiz and banner.

All I can say is, our kidlitosphere is amazing when it comes to these things. Thank you to all the folks on the listserve who shared their posts and introduced me to some new blogs and bloggers in the process!

Sit Down and Write Already! But Read This First.

It's still warm in California, but all signs point to fall. Aside from my being allergic to things, it's one of my favorite seasons. I'm hoping to channel some of the general sense of well-being that autumn brings me into my writing--whether the motivation goes into my current work-in-progress, or whether it's new projects like that short story percolating in the back of my head, this fun Halloween Short Story Contest at Literary Asylum, or even a new novel for NaNoWriMo. (Yes, I've got something percolating for that, too...) Maybe I'll even send a story or two to new markets I just heard of, like Read Short Fiction, which advertises their stories on Facebook in order to build a larger audience. (An interesting strategy.)

In any case, I'll continue to remind myself to keep my Butt In Chair, let my imagination go, and, as writerjenn notes, skip the boring parts.

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If you're still having trouble getting motivated to write, here are a few sources of additional procrastination. (I help; I hinder.) Barb Langridge of A Book and a Hug has an exhaustive and fabulously searchable database of children's and YA book reviews. Toy with it here. (Maybe one day I'll devote enough time to my OWN procrastination to see if we can get our reviews linked. Though, judging from how often I contributed to the Children's Book Reviews wiki...erm...ahem.)

Okay. Still procrastinating. Why not check out the latest installment of The Secret of Donotalado, the ongoing interactive story brought to you by the Hazardous Players?

Or, get even more incensed in preparation for Banned Books Week: the Stockton, MO school board voted 7-0 to ban Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. And then counter that tidbit of infuriating news with this excellent article by Jim Blasingame, president of ALAN (Assembly on Literature for Adolescents), talking about Native American literature for teens, and including Sherman Alexie's comments on censorship and writing for young adults. (Kudos to my mom for forwarding those links in her latest NCTE newsletter.)