Saturday, September 28, 2013

Banned Books Week Reflections


Now that Banned Books Week is coming to a close, I wanted to talk about what an amazing week it has been.

First of all, I am so proud to have organized the first EVER #nctechat on Twitter to be for the start of Banned Books Week. Laurie Halse Anderson and Teri Lesesne were the hosts, but other illustrious authors made an appearance as well, such as Judy Blume, Stephen Chbosky, and Chris Barton to name a few. The chat was going to fast and furious that I didn't have time to read all the tweets. Thankfully the chat is archived on Storify so I was able to read through them at a more leisurely pace the next day. We were even trending #2 on Twitter for a while! How awesome is that?


Sherman Alexie Google Hangout
Sherman Alexie is such an amazing advocate for books and for getting books into kids' hands when people are trying to take them away. Alexie is so well-spoken and charming that it's hard to imagine anyone still wanting to ban his books after talking to him.


Ellen Hopkins at Literati
On Wednesday Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor hosted YA author Ellen Hopkins. I guiltily admitted to her when she signed my books that I only just started reading them this week, but I will certainly be making up for lost time. She writes about all the things that people ban books for: drugs, sex, violence, religion... You know, the usual. But her books are unique because they're written in verse and they don't pull any punches. They're raw and uncomfortable, mainly because they're real. And through that uncomfortable reality, teens can be saved from allowing their lives to go down the same path. Hopkins saves teen lives, yet there are people out there who think her books corrupt them.

Check out the body of Ellen Hopkins's work on Goodreads



Nerdy Book Club Banned Books Micro Reviews
 Earlier this week Nerdy Book Club called for readers to write micro reviews of their favorite banned books. I chose Amy Timberlake and Adam Rex's The Dirty Cowboy. 


And, as always, I like to post this video during Banned Books Week because it's John Green and I love John Green.


What were your favorite Banned Books Week moments?
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1 comment:

  1. chelseaSeptember 28, 2013 at 5:52 PM

    This is the first year I've even paid attention to Banned Books Week. And I think my favorite moment was seeing my microreview published on the Nerdy Book Club blog! I've always been TERRIBLE at writing book reviews, and it gave me the push I needed to do a book review genre study with my students next week. In fact, I'm already thinking about a zine of microreviews.... :)

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