Flashback Friday: Banned Books Week

Welcome to Week Twenty-One of Flashback Fridays where the old and new collide on everything from books to movies to first loves to favorite vacations. This week we're discussing banned books for Banned Books Week.

Catcher in the Rye, The Diary of Anne Frank, Of Mice and Men, The Wizard of Oz, Forever...all of these are banned books. What are your favorite or treasured banned books? Want to know if yours is on a banned or challenged list? Then check out ALA'S list.

The most treasured banned book for me has to be To Kill a Mockingbird. My first experience with TKAM came in 8th grade when I first read the novel. Sure, I didn't gain the literary appreciation for it then, but I do remember loving the characters, feeling the

injustice of what happened to Tom Robinson, and sympathizing with Boo Radley. I also remember the culminating project I did: a Southern cookbook filled with TKAM inspired recipes(I'll admit

my Grammy, a master of Southern cooking, helped me a bit!)

The next time I read TKAM was in my second undergrad when I was adding a teaching degree to my English degree. It was then that I truly grasped the full mastery that is the book.

I got to teach TKAM for the first time the following year. I remember feeling the responsibility of covering not only all the

beautiful figurative language, the themes, etc, but to truly convey the character's triumphs and tragedies. I taught TKAM for five years. The first year I moved up to high school, I was saddened to not be teaching it anymore. I haven't read it in awhile, and I plan on rereading it soon.

Each time I do, I find some other literary gem within its pages or some turn of a phrase that I, as a writer, marvel at. The film adaptation, though considerably different, stands alone in its mastery. The very final scene of "Neighbors bring food and flowers with death...." has me weeping every time, especially since it is adult Scout reflecting back, and you realize when she thinks of Atticus, he is probably deceased, and of Boo Radley(I'm seriously choking up right now!)!!!!

When I started out writing, I began with a Southern Literary Fiction--very much inspir

ed by TKAM as well as Fried Green Tomatoes at the WhistleStop Cafe and Cold Sassy Tree. I have a Southern YA Historical that's itching to be written....not sure when it will happen though.

So, want to support Banned Books week besides buying or reading banned books? How about sporting some Banned Books jewelry? I have the Banned Books Bracelet myself!

Banned Books Necklace

Banned Books Bracelet

Cafe Press has some awesome Banned Books posters for sale.

Or you can go to ABFFE or the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression for some downloadable posters.

Now it's your turn. Tell us what your favorite Banned Book is and why?

*Congrats to Sammi for winning Gotya's copy of Speak. Email kra79@comcast.net to redeem it!

Monday Guest Blogging bows to Speak Loudly for Laurie Halse Anderson and Speak

It's time to Speak Loudly for Speak!!!

We interrupt our usual Monday Guest Blogging broadcast, er, post, to bring you an Epic Guest Blogging event. Unless you were off twitter, blogs, social media, or in a hole yesterday, you might have missed how Laurie Halse Anderson's wonderful book, Speak, is being challenged as "pornographic". Yes, I know it's absurd, but unfortunately, this absurd and completely warped voice has been the one spouting hate and intolerance in the press. That's why the Young Adult literary community as well as writers everywhere need to stand up and refuse book banning and censorship as well as regulating rape to some pornographic, highly sexual event, which is most certainly NOT!

So, today I leave you with the link where you can find blogs in defense of Laurie Halse Anderson and Speak. The very awesomeness that is Reclusive Bibliophile made an expansive list.

However, the one that touched me deeply, had me weeping was CJ Redwine's brave and courageous post about being a rape survivor and what books like Speak mean to those who have experienced it.

And Lindsey Roth Culli had a great open letter to Dr. citing her faith and backing up her argument with scripture from the Bible. TAKE THAT!

The very fabulous Myra McEntire had courage enough to post about how much her faith means to her, how hard it is to be a writer and a Christian sometimes, and how issues like this get her really riled.

And I also blogged about being a Christian, having the pleasure of teaching Speak last year, meeting Laurie Halse Anderson at ALA, and how not all Christians are intolerant book banning haters.

************GotYA wants to support Speak returning to the BestSeller's List. We will be giving away a copy on Flashback Friday. All you have to do is comment today, and you'll be entered. *******

A Wrinkle in Sanity

Fifth grade. La Paz Elementary School. I still remember sitting, wide-eyed with wonder, as our teacher read to us of a strange and mysterious world. Day after day, we all gathered eagerly on the floor, ready to become immersed in a land filled with tesseracts, characters with odd names like Aunt Beast and Mrs. Whatsit, and a young, rebellious high-school girl named Meg who ultimately saves the planet.

Of course, I’m talking about the Newbury Award winning A Wrinkle in Time, written by Madeleine L’ Engle in 1962. This book was my first introduction to science fiction. After reading it in school, I remember snatching my older sister’s dog-eared copy from her room, so that I could log some serious mileage of my own on those pages. I mean, what’s not to like? A Wrinkle in Time features an amazing world chock full of equally amazing themes: love conquers all, the importance of personal responsibility, and fighting the pressure to conform. And as if that isn’t enough, the novel also hits on good vs. evil, courage, and integrating faith with reason.

You’d think a book like this would be accepted and adored throughout our country, right? Wrong. A Wrinkle in Time, like so many other childhood favorites, made the 100 Most Challenged Books list of the 1990’s. Number 22, to be precise. What a sad, sad thing censorship is—I can’t imagine having to grow up without this classic science fiction fantasy to keep me company.

Please, do yourself a favor—go to the American Library Association’s Most Frequently Banned Books page. Read the list, and then read the books. Have your children read the books. By doing so, you’ll help us fight conformity in our own world—and make Madeleine L’ Engle proud.

Original post published by GotYa contributor Debra Driza. To view the original post and reader comments, please click here.

Giving Inspiration

The Giver is a 1993 novel by Lois Lowry. It is set in a future society which is at first presented as a utopian society and gradually appears more and more dystopian; therefore, it could be considered anti-utopian. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth year of his life. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to “Sameness”, a plan which has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of “Receiver of Memory,” the person who stores all the memories of the time before Sameness, in case they are ever needed to aid in decisions that others lack the experience to make. As Jonas receives the memories from the previous receiver—the “Giver”—he discovers how shallow his community’s life has become.

Despite controversy and criticism that the book’s subject material is inappropriate for young children, The Giver won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 5.3 million copies. In Australia, the United States and Canada, it is a part of many middle school reading lists, but it is also on many banned book lists. The novel forms a loose trilogy with Gathering Blue (2000) and Messenger (2004), two other books set in the same future era.

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My friend, who happens to be a high school English teacher, and I were at Borders one Friday night perusing the YA section, because that’s what us old thirty-somethings do on Friday nights. Her hand darted out and grabbed a thin book with an old, grisly looking man on the cover. She shoved it into my hands and said, “You have to read this!” The book was The Giver by Lois Lowry.

I bought it, but I’ll admit I was hesitant to crack the cover. It didn’t look like “my thing”. After about a month of collecting dust on my nightstand, I picked it up one night after scooting in bed under the covers.

It was a different read for me. There were no desperately in love teen girls, no vampires or werewolves, no alcoholic mother or abusive father, just seemingly perfect people living in a seemingly perfect world.

Then the metaphorical shade was drawn and Lois Lowry gave us a peek into the real world she’d created, where babies and old people are “released”, a civil form of euthanasia in Lowry’s dystopian society.

As I read, and was unable to stop reading, I recalled Brave New World from my high school days, a book I devoured and recommended to everyone in my family. After reading the last page of The Giver, I immediately opened a new Word document and began my own dystopian novel.

As for being banned…I’d rather have my children learn about a dystopian society, and the level of control a government can have over people from books like The Giver, than by first hand experience. Hopefully it will open their eyes and political interests early. Not only do authors like Lowry spark a love of reading, they spark thoughts about morality, responsibility, and political sensibility.

Original post published on Old People Writing for Teens by GotYA contributor Jamie Blair. To view the original post and reader comments, please click here.

Are you there Judy? It’s me, Kathleen.

Margaret and I go way back; I’ve known her since the fifth grade. Margaret was cool and worldly—worldly compared to me, at any rate. I was just a Canadian kid in a town with a whopping population of 9,929. Margaret was from New York and her parents didn’t practice any religion. Her Dad was born Jewish and her Mom was born Christian but they said she could pick her own faith when she was older. How cool was that? She also knew all about periods—sorry, menstroo-ation. Thank God. My mother tried to explain it, once. It wasn’t the most effective talk. If Margaret hadn’t taken me under her wing, I would have fainted dead away at the first sight of red. She also helped convince me I wasn’t a total perv for sneaking my mom’s copy of The Art of Michelangelo up to my room to steal peeks at David.

Even though we drifted apart, I still think of her fondly. She was a friend when I needed one. When I saw her name on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 most frequently challenged books between 1990 and 1999, I was crushed. That’s right: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was one of the most challenged titles of the 90’s.

For almost forty years, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret has been changing the lives of pre-teen girls. Judy Blume accomplished a feat that is both awe inspiring and, to the wrong people, terribly frightening. AYTG? supplemented the five minute reproduction talk we got from our parents, taught us that it was okay to grow and change, and hinted that we could make important choices for ourselves—even when it came to something as seemingly unquestionable as religion. If Stephen King’s Carrie had been given a copy at, say, thirteen, that whole traumatic shower scene could have been avoided and she might not have set the gym on fire at prom.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret empowered us, even if we didn’t know it at the time. I was a stronger, more confident girl because of Judy Blume. Because of Margaret.

Original post published on Old People Writing for Teens by GotYA contributor Kathleen. To view the original post and reader comments, please click here.