Don't take reading for granted. Celebrate the freedom to read whatever the hell you damn well please. For more on Banned Book Week 2011, please use this link to The American Library Association website.
I'll be posting my own Five Best Banned Books post today. Working on it as we speak.
Note: Painting by Jean Etienne Liotard (1702 - 1789) Alteration by me.
This is a good idea to publicize book banning -- and outrage --like his.
ReplyDeleteI have read at least 10 of the list of banned classics. In fact, my favorite books are on that list; more would be if I could get myself away from mysteries for a time.
Books that left impressions on me for years to come are banned, by authors Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, John Steinbeck, Zora Neale Hurston, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair.
And I like that painting very much, the attitude, colors, interest in the book.
Thanks, Kathy. I like this painting as well. Thought it would be appropriate for a poster.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of books being taken off library shelves to prevent people from reading them, it makes my blood boil.
Some of my favorites (see list) were banned at some point of other by wrong-headed type who should have known better.
What? They are taken off library shelves? I feel a rant coming.
ReplyDeleteEvery book that I read that is on the banned list made me think and learn something, or many things. They were part of forming who I am, helping me to learn and understand more about the world and figure out what I believe in and hold dear.
What kind of people take books OFF shelves? What about learning? Expanding our thinking?
That's just it. They don't want us to expand our thinking, just read idiotic books at 5th-grade level (no offense to 5th graders who read or their teachers) which require no brain power. Or read best-sellers which mostly are ridiculous, at least those in my library.
Kathy: Luckily for all of us, banned books are available readily anywhere.
ReplyDeleteBut we still need to call attention to the reality that somewhere, even in the 21st century, there's a book being banned because of a narrow-minded effort to 'protect' people from ideas.