Banned Books Week Readings: Celebrating the Freedom to Read!

Please join Octavia Book along with other New Orleans independent bookstores, the ACLU of Louisiana Foundation, the New Orleans Public Library, and the New Orleans Gulf South Booksellers Association for our annual Banned Books Week Readings - celebrating the freedom to read and the first ammendment the the U.S. Constitution.

Notable city leaders, authors, journalists, educators, and local celebrities from New Orleans will read excerpts from their favorite banned books. Readers include Patty Friedman, Fred Kasten, Roy Watts, Dennis Woltering, Gerod Stevens, Ken Foster, Dionne Character, Michael Sartisky, Clancy DuBos and others.

The event will be held at Bridge Lounge (1201 Magazine Street, New Orleans) from 2 PM to 4:30 PM on Sunday, September 19th, 2010. This event is free and open to the public and a cash bar and menu will be available.

This program is a local kick-off forBanned Books Week, started in 1982 by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers and the National Association of College Stores to raise awareness of censorship problems in the United States and abroad. For over 25 years, it has remained the only national celebration of the freedom to read.

Book censorship of all kinds – even book-burning – continues today. Challenges may come from parents, teachers, clergy members, elected officials, or organized groups, and arise due to objections to language, violence, sexual or racial themes, or religious viewpoint, to name just a few. In 2009, the ALA counted 460 challenges. Many other cases go unreported.

Last year, for example, in Shelby, Michigan Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison was suspended from the curriculum after the superintendent ordered a teacher to remove the book from advanced  English classes. In Vineland, NJ, the principal of Landis Intermediate School literally tore pages out of the school's copy of the nationally acclaimed poetry anthology, Paint Me Like I Am, written by teens for teens after one parent raised concerns over the "age-appropriateness" of Jason Tirado's poem, "Diary of an Abusive Step-father." In West Bend, WI several books were challenged at the Community Memorial Public Library and the Library Board was accused of "promoting the overt indoctrination of the gay-agenda." In addition, the Christian Civil Liberties Union's Milwaukee branch filed a legal claim arguing its elderly plaintiffs suffered mental and emotional damage due to the book's presence in the public library's Young Adult section.

The 10 most challenged titles were:

   ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: nudity, sexually explicit, offensive language, drugs,
and unsuited to age group

 

   And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: homosexuality

   The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually
explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group

 

 

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Reasons: racism, offensive language, unsuited to age group

 

 

Twilight (series), by Stephanie Meyer
Reasons: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group



  Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
Reasons: sexaully explicit, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group




     
My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult
Reasons: sexism, homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group, drugs, suicide, violence

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, by Carolyn  Mackler
Reasons: sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

 

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Reasons: sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

 

                            
The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
Reasons: nudity, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

The 2010 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 25 through October 2, however, we are holding our New Orleans kick-off 1 week ahead of schedule on a non Saints game Sunday. 

Thank you for celebrating the freedom to read!