Let's Hear It One More Time for Banned Books!

Before I let go of Banned Books Week for another year (yeah, that'll happen), I wanted to pass on a few more banned bookish items.

Becky at Farm School did a fantastic series of posts about Banned Book Week. Here's two of my favorites:

• What Big Teeth You Have - A fun discussion of Trina Schart Hyman's retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, which has raised challenges for its portrayal of Grandma as a wine drinker, and a 1925 song, "How Could Little Red Riding Hood?", the first song to be banned from radio for being "improper and suggestive."
• Running with Scissors - IF defenders raise an uproar at book challenges and clear cases of censorship, but what about stories—particularly children's stories—that undergo "makeovers" to sanitize them for today's children? What about the books we allow to go quietly out of print?

Young adult author Barbara Shoup discusses the liberating pleasure of returning the f-word to her award-winning book Wish You Were Here, which was re-released by Flux this year.

Banned Books Week? In the Internet age, what we really need is Blocked Bytes Week, celebrating freedom from Internet filters! So says Doug Johnson of Blue Skunk Blog. (Via Abby Librarian.)

AL Focus has posted a video of Stephen Chbosky, author of the much-challenged The Perks of Being a Wallflower, reading a letter from a young reader detailing how much his book meant to her. For every reason to challenge a book, there's a thousand to keep it on the shelf. Definitely worth a listen; just make sure to turn up the sound, it's a little muffled.