One More for the Road

Soo... it's 1:42 AM and thus technically Saturday where I am...
...but two timezones west of me, it's only 11:42, so I am redeemed. ;)

This Sunday evening I'll be taking my computer up to my dorm, where it will stay the better part of the year.
There's no telling what speed my internet will run there.

That being said, anybody interested in reading banned and censored books needs to check out this website:
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

Banned Books Week isn't too far away, and I've found myself reading more and more Bradbury as it approaches (and if you get the reference to him in the title of this post, you win a free hypothetical cookie!!), and I've found a few teen books like "The Libyrinth" by Pearl North that address the subject of bookburning in new and intensely interesting ways.

I wonder how many books you all read have been banned somewhere.
Have you ever enjoyed Harry Potter, The Giver, or Where is Waldo?
Have you sat down with your older relatives to hear about Red Riding Hood?
Maybe Judy Blume, Jane Yolen, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Bruce Coville delighted you as a tyke... but I bet you have no IDEA how much of their art has been removed from libraries for reasons that most free-thinking people would regard as perfectly ridiculous.
To Kill a Mockingbird... required reading at my high school: banned.
Fahrenheit 451... suggested reading at my high school, and addressing bookburning: banned.

It's really a sick irony, but books that defend books are most frequently the books removed from public libraries and recommended reading lists.

Oh, and if you've ever enjoyed Orson Scott Card, Isaac Asimov, Eoin Colfer, Herbie Brennan, J.K. Rowling,
or K.A. Applegate...
...then you are automatically a reader of banned books. Those four authors hold rather an interesting distinction in that somewhere on Earth, every last one of their books written under those names (non-pseudonymous) has been banned.
Sometimes people take it so far that they ignore the genre, plot, and quality of a book, and they want it gone simply because of the name printed on the front.

Why, you may as, is Estelore suddenly championing banned books?
Well, two reasons:
1. I spent these past two summers doing volunteer work at the local library. It's impossible for me not to love those books and the knowledge in them.
2. There is enough stupid in the world. Rather, there is far too MUCH stupid in the world, and by removing books, we are removing chances to lose some of that stupid.

Little Scout Finch in Harper Lee's much-contested classic said it about right:
"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."

I don't know about you, but I love breathing. I love reading. Heaven help the fool that tries to take that away from me or the people who feel the same as me about this.

Well, it's late. I wish you all a lovely weekend, sweet dreams, and a superabundance of quality reading materials.

Read on.
-Estelore