Banned Books Week September 21-28

A few words about censorship:

Plain and simple, people try to ban books because they're scared. On the surface they might be trying to "help" or "protect our nation's youth" and their hearts might genuinely be in the right place, but under it all, they are scared.
I even understand their fear, there are books that I might not want a future child of mine to navigate until a certain age, but that should be a discussion between myself and my child. Talk to your children, tell them what you are uncomfortable with and create a dialogue. Let me do the same.
If a book is inaccurate, by all means challenge it, fix it, and republish it. But if you object to an author talking candidly about sex, violence, strong language, drugs, masturbation, or any number of topics that tends to set people off, remember you have the choice not to read it. You have the choice to ask your child/children not to read it. You do not have the right to prevent me from reading it.
Young adult fiction saves lives. Literally. Don't take that away from anyone.

Books, all books, are tools we use to understand ourselves, each other, learn about the past, and nurture hope for the future. They help us defend ourselves and stand up for what's right. They show us we are never alone.

Pick up a banned book. Show the close-minded self-righteous people that you are not afraid. You are fierce and your right to read will not be hampered by their ignorance.

I will leave you with a quote from the inimitable Ray Bradbury: "For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmild teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture. If the Chicano intellectuals wish to re-cut my "Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" so it shapes "Zoot," may the belt unravel and the pants fall. For, let's face it, digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones. Laurence Sterne said it once: Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading!"