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Showing posts from September, 2017

Let's Fight Censorship with The Great Gatsby!

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Question: What do The Great Gatsby , Moby Dick , Their Eyes Were Watching God , and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone all have in common? (Besides being iconic enough that you may have read, heard of, or been force fed at least one of them in your lifetime.) Answer: They've all been banned. September 24th - 30th is Banned Book Week . Book censorship has a long and storied history, and the tradition is alive and kicking in 2017. (What else is new?) Books have been banned for a variety of reasons -- for portraying sex and violence and using profanity to encouraging children to break dishes or for being 'a real downer' (those last two were A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstien and Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank, respectively). Banned Book Week brings attention to books that have been challenged and/or banned in schools, libraries, and elsewhere, both locally and nationally, and celebrates the efforts of book-lovers to fight censorship and preserve t