“Our most basic freedom in a democratic society is our first amendment right of the freedom to read,” said ALA President Courtney Young. “Banned Books Week is an opportunity for all of us – community residents, librarians, authors and educators – to stand together protecting this fundamental right for everyone and for future generations. We can never take this precious right for granted.”
Monday night, late. No idea what the weather is like at this moment . . .
It’s Banned Books Week, and you know how I feel about that. I found the wonderful poem by Robert Morgan below, and it really touched a nerve for me. You see, I taught myself to read with Superman comic books. My dad got so tired of me wanting him to read to me all of the time that he told me that I should learn to read for myself. I was four.
Anyway, I don’t care what your background is, who you are, what color you are, what your country of origin is—reading is one of the most powerful tools in the world. Reading is knowledge, and the idea that there are books and comics that should not be read for whatever reason just slays me. You see, I have seen illiteracy up close. It’s ugly, very ugly.
So if I young child comes to you with a book or comic and asks you to read it, don’t say no. Never say no. It doesn’t matter if you like it. It doesn’t matter if you agree with it. Words can save us all. Do not deny anyone that access.
Read to your children. Read to your siblings. Read to your grandchildren, your nieces, your nephews, your neighbors. You want to make this a better world? Read to someone, and then, teach them to read for themselves.
More later. Peace.
Important Links:
- The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom
- Banned Books Week for information and resources for getting your library or organization involved in this event
- Frequently Challenged Books
- American Library Association site
- American Society of Journalists and Authors, Inc. (Banned Weeks Button)
Funny Books
Because my parents had denied
me comic books as sordid and
salacious, I would sneak a look
at those of friends, the bold and bright
slick covers, pages rough as news
and inked in pinks and greens and blues
as cowboys shouted in balloons
and Indian yells were printed on
the clouds. I borrowed books and hid
them in the crib and under shoes
and under bed. The glories of
those hyperbolic zaps and screams
were my illuminated texts,
the chapbook prophets of forbidden
and secret art, the narratives
of quest and conquest in the West,
of Superman and Lash Larue.
The print and pictures cruder than
the catalog were sweeter than
the cake at Bible School. I crouched
in almost dark and swilled the words
that soared in their balloons and bulbs
of grainy breath into my pulse,
into the stratosphere of my
imagination, reaching Mach
and orbit speed, escape velocity
just at the edge of Sputnik’s age,
in stained glass windows of the page.
~ Robert Morgan
Music by Greg Holden, “The Lost Boy”
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 