Banned Book Week (a little late)

Ok, so I am coming into this at the end, but this past week has been Banned Book Week as designated by ALA.

I don't do too much in elementary school to celebrate - sometimes I read a picture book to my students that was once banned (Sylvester and the Magic Pebble was one I have read before), but this year, with so much of my reading having to relate to the curriculum, I have not had time to do things like this.

Sondra, at the Kane/Miller blog has a post up about the week and usually I do what she does, read a banned book, but this year I never got around to it, maybe this weekend I will re-read me some Judy Blume!

The best example of a banned book week "stunt" came from Walter Mayes. I know I will get some of the facts wrong, but he told a story last year at a meeting I was at about how he told the girls at his private, all-girl middle school that they were banning fantasy books from the media center. The girls ended up staging a protest and I believe that the media was called in before the girls were told it was a joke (Oh wait, maybe this was an April fools thing) well anyway, the point was how passionate KIDS can be when we tell them we are going to ban them from books.

I have been VERY lucky and have not had one formal challenge in the six years I have been a media specialist, but there have been many media specialists in my county that have not been so lucky.

I for one, cannot imagine my life without having read Judy Blume when I was ten or reading Catcher in the Rye when I was sixteen - both banned authors/books.