Banned Books Week: Friday

Yeah, we got off track, day-wise. But this is the final post in the series, so here goes.

What is probably the locally best-selling young adult novel of the last few years (and selling like hotcakes nationally as well), Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has had its fair share of book challenges since its debut.

It was actually pulled out of classrooms and libraries in Missouri and Oregon. Alexie, charming as ever, has given a bunch of great quotes in the various articles about his books being challenged (a quick online search will uncover other challenges and other articles). But instead of linking to him talking about book banning, I'm just going to link to him talking about one of the "controversial" scenes in the book. Here's Bookshelves of Doom's "If you don't have a crush on Sherman Alexie after watching this, well, we've got a problem" post with the video. Don't worry, BoD. We always did and always will. But y'all should watch that video regardless. (The audio may be, as the kids say, mildly NSFW- not safe for work. But it's really not particularly shocking.)

-Anna, Kids Books

P.S. Remember my first banned book post about Speak? That school district is now taking the book challenge under consideration. All three of those books are great, by the way. And we carry each one, because books need readers and readers need books. In the end, the best anti-book-banning thing we can do is keep reading whatever we want to, and keep pointing it out when someone tries to prevent people from reading what they want. (And maybe to do what authors often do: if you hear that a book gets banned somewhere, send their local public library a few copies so they can keep it in circulation. Couldn't hurt!)