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VLA and ACLU to Hold Banned Books Week Read-out – Spread the Word
Dear friends,
In celebration of the First Amendment during Banned Books Week, the VLA Intellectual Freedom Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont will present “An Evening Without. . .Giving Voice to the Silenced,” Thursday, Sept. 30.
The free event will feature writers from around Vermont as they read from works by those whose writing has been challenged, censored, or banned.
Featured readers are Jerry Carbone (director of the Brooks Memorial Library), Jon Clinch, Joni Cole, Castle Freeman, Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Karen Hesse, and Suzanne Kingsbury, reading from works by Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, George Orwell, Katherine Paterson, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, and Kurt Vonnegut.
The event is held in collaboration with the Brattleboro Literary Festival, and is funded in part by VLA’s John Swan Endowment Fund. John Swan was a Vermont librarian and intellectual freedom advocate.
WHEN: September 30 at 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main Street, Brattleboro, Vermont
ADMISSION: Free!
I hope you’ll attend if you can, and that you’ll help promote the event at your library. Please visit the ACLU Web site at http://www.acluvt.org/news/evening_without.php to download and print a PDF poster you can hang and re-distribute via e-mail. Information about the event is also available at http://brattleboroliteraryfestival.org/event/an-evening-without-giving-voice-to-the-silenced/
Thanks, and please let me know if you have questions.
Sincerely,
Trina Magi
Member, VLA Intellectual Freedom Committee
No books have been banned in the USA for about a half a century. See “National Hogwash Week.” If you want to read a banned book, read the last book banned in the USA, namely, Fanny Hill, last banned in 1963.
Thomas Sowell says Banned Books Week is “the kind of shameless propaganda that has become commonplace in false charges of ‘censorship’ or ‘book banning’ has apparently now been institutionalized with a week of its own.” He calls it “National Hogwash Week.”
Former ALA Councilor Jessamyn West said, “It also highlights the thing we know about Banned Books Week that we don’t talk about much — the bulk of these books are challenged by parents for being age-inappropriate for children. While I think this is still a formidable thing for librarians to deal with, it’s totally different from people trying to block a book from being sold at all.” See “Banned Books Week is Next Week.”
And then there’s Judith Krug herself who created BBW:
“Marking 25 Years of Banned Books Week,” by Judith Krug, Curriculum Review, 46:1, Sep. 2006. “On rare occasion, we have situations where a piece of material is not what it appears to be on the surface and the material is totally inappropriate for a school library. In that case, yes, it is appropriate to remove materials. If it doesn’t fit your material selection policy, get it out of there.”
Lastly, remember the ALA does not oppose book burning when doing so would interfere with its political interests. Go see what Judith Krug said about Cuban librarians: “American Library Association Shamed,” by Nat Hentoff.
Comment by Dan Kleinman — Sep 10, 2010 @ 10:13 pm