Word to Dreams: Banned Books Week - September 21st

Starting on Sept 21st and ending on September 27th is Banned Books Week.

You may think that this kind of censorship is something in the past, that we really don't need to worry about it during this day and age. Sorry, but it's still happening all over the world. Think Harry Potter and Captain Underpants. Yep, even the captain has been challenged! Hundreds of books have been either removed or challenged in schools and libraries in the United States every year. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there were at least 326 in 2011. ALA estimates that 70 to 80 percent are never reported.

Censorship has caused several to be affected by the few. A person doesn't like a particular book due to language or subject matter, instead of just putting the book to the side and choosing another, they go verbal to the point that the book is taken from the shelf and anyone wishing to read that book would have to go elsewhere to find it. It is your own personal choice of what to read or not to read.

Nobody should be able to tell you otherwise and as a parent, it's my responsibility to see what my children are reading and decide if it's appropriate for them or not. And if I don't, it's my responsibility to speak with my child and/or their teacher and come to an agreeable alternative.

For more information, please check out Banned Books Week.

A HUGE Thanks to BookHounds and Kathy from I am a Reader for setting this up!

Here's a book that has been banned and I was quite surprised because it is very popular with YA readers!

Looking for Alaska

by John Green

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. Then he heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same.

This book was banned as required reading for Sumner County, Tenn. schools in 2012 because of "inappropriate language." This book won the 2006 Printz award for excellence in young adult literature.