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Guest post by Yvonne Ventresca (@YvonneVentresca)

The summer before my junior year at Island Trees High School, the Supreme Court ruled on the book banning case Island Trees School District v. Pico. That summer vacation, I read a lot of romance novels with the occasional Agatha Christie thrown in. But the banned books piqued my interest. What didn’t the school board want me to learn? I borrowed Down These Mean Streets from the library, and found that Piri Thomas’s memoir about growing up on the streets of Spanish Harlem was as far from ‘80s Levittown and Danielle Steel stories as you could get. But even though aspects of his life were vastly different from mine, at sixteen, I discovered truth and beauty in his words, some of which I copied into my high school journal.

“The worlds of home and school were made up of rules laid down by adults who had forgotten the feeling of what it means to be a kid but expected a kid to remember to be an adult – something he hadn’t gotten to yet.” (Piri Thomas)

The scenes that initially caused Down These Mean Streets to be banned weren’t among the many paragraphs I transcribed at sixteen. It was the honesty and power of Thomas’s language as he struggled to find his place in the world that made an impact on me. His book was the most meaningful thing I read the summer of 1982 and it cemented my belief in every student’s freedom to read.

In response to the number of books being challenged in the United States, 1982 was also the year Banned Books Week began. Unfortunately, challenging and banning books still goes on today. Between 2000-2009, over 5000 challenges were reported. (According the ALA, “a challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials.” http://www.ala.org/bbooks.) Shockingly, over 1200 instances occurred in PUBLIC LIBRARIES. Some of my favorite authors, such as Sherman Alexie, Jay Asher, and John Green, were among the most challenged in 2012.

As the ALA states in a recent press release, “Banned Books Week, Sept. 22 – 28, stresses the importance of preventing censorship and ensuring everyone’s freedom to read any book, no matter how unorthodox or unpopular.” For more information on Banned Books Week and supporting the freedom to read, visit www.bannedbooksweek.org .

Yvonne Ventresca (www.YvonneVentresca.com) is a young adult author whose debut novel, Pandemic, will be available from Sky Pony Press in May 2014.

Thank you Yvonne for sharing this article with us. This is the first time we have talked about banned books on this blog.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Thanks to Amy, my counterpart at Fort Erie Public Library, who forwarded a link for The First Banned Books Video Calendar. Says Amy, "For years and years Finland had the highest literacy rate in the world, largely due to the fact that 99+ % of Finns were Lutherans, and the Lutherans made sure all children could read, so they could read Luther's catechism."

The Entresse Library in Espoo, Finland and FAIFE (IFLA Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression) have partnered to create this resource.

Following the tradition of the Advent calendar, each day between December 1st and December 24th a new window will open and a new book will be presented on several sites throughout the world.

In Canada, we are in the middle of Freedom to Read Week. Find out more on the Freedom to Read website. Let us know what you have been doing to recognize this week in the comments. The Freedom to Read kit is available for free download. It features an in-depth history of the censorship of comic books and many other interesting articles.

Don't forget to sign up for the Banned Book Challenge, running from now until June 30.

(Click on event name for more information)

African American History Month~ USA

National African American Read-in~  USA

Black History Month~ Canada

February Literacy Workshops for Parents, Teachers and Writers with Daphne Lee~ Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

National Storytelling Week~ ongoing until Feb 6, United Kingdom

Kolkata Book Fair~ ongoing until Feb 7, Kolkata, India

“Tea with Chachaji” A Musical Production based on Chachaji’s Cup by Uma Krishnaswami~ ongoing until Feb 11, New York, NY, USA

Stories from Childhood: Lin Hai-yin’s Children’s Literature Book Exhibition and Activity Series~ ongoing until Mar 1, Tainan City, Taiwan

2009 Bologna Illustrators Exhibition of Children’s Books~ ongoing until Mar 1, Seoul, Korea

Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books Presents: Journey to Adventure~ ongoing until Mar 6, Toronto, ON, Canada

Entries Accepted for the Growing Up Asian in America Contest~ ongoing until Mar 10, San Francisco, CA, USA

The Making of the Word Witch: The Poetic & Illustrative Magic of Margaret Mahy & David Elliot~ ongoing until  Mar 14, Ashburton, New Zealand

21st Annual Children’s Book Illustrators Exhibit~ ongoing until Apr 3, Hayward, CA, USA

Mother Goose in an Air-Ship: McLoughlin Bros. 19th Century Children’s Books from the Liman Collection~ ongoing until Apr 18,  Amherst, MA, USA

Heart and Soul: Art from Coretta Scott King Award Books, 2006–2009~ ongoing until Apr 18, Chicago, IL, USA

From The Tiger Who Came to Tea to Mog and Pink Rabbit; A Judith Kerr Retrospective~ ongoing until May, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

Leo Lee Arts Centre Presents Renowned Canadian Author Deb Ellis~ Feb 1 – 2, Hong Kong