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Wondering how book banning works? Check out the podcast "How Book Banning Works" featuring Josh and Chuck over at Stuff You Should Know.

Episode description:

If you want to control the masses, control what they read. After all, books are seeds that germinate new points of view. As a result, the struggle against banning books is contentious and continual. Learn more about banning books in this episode.

You can stream the episode or download it.

Celebrate the freedom to read during Banned Books Week.

From www.bannedbooksweek.org/about:

Banned Books Week is the national book community's annual celebration of the freedom to read. Hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. The 2013 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 22-28.  Banned Books Week 2014 will be held September 21-27.

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982. For more information on Banned Books Week, click here. According to the American Library Association, there were 464 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2012, and many more go unreported.

Looking for ways to observe Banned Books Week? Check out the American Library Association's Schedule of Events for Banned Books Week 2013 to see what the organization has going on, including Google hangouts with authors, the Banned Books Week 2013 Twitter Party and virtual read-outs.

Wondering what books are challenged or banned? Check out ALA's page on Frequently Challenged Books, which includes this awesome timeline of the past 30 years of banned books, the list of banned and challenged classics, the list of frequently challenged books of the 21st century, the list of 100 most frequently challenged books by decade, and more. Seriously, you could spend all of Banned Books Week just making a list of books you will want to read.

My favorite banned or challenged book is "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. What's yours?


-- Cheryl Sadler | csadler@news-herald.com | @nhcheryl

This month's LitSoup isn't a question, but instead a focus on Banned Books Week, which is celebrating its 30th year next week.

Below, I've embedded a YouTube playlist that features videos of authors speaking on banned books and celebrities participating in a Virtual Read-Out.



Want to do your own Virtual Read-Out? Check out this information from BannedBooksWeek.org:

Are you looking for a way to celebrate your freedom to read during Banned Books Week? Consider participating in the Banned Books Virtual Read-out!
Since the inception of Banned Books Week in 1982, libraries and bookstores throughout the country have staged local read-outs—a continuous reading of banned/challenged books—as part of their activities. For the second year in a row, readers from around the world can participate in the Banned Books Virtual Read-Out by creating videos proclaiming the virtues of the freedom to read that will be featured on a dedicated YouTube channel.

If you do a Virtual Read-Out, let me know. I'll post them on the blog. (If you'd like to do a Virtual Read-Out but don't have a camera or YouTube account, email me and we can schedule a time for you to stop by the office.) For now, check out this playlist of other readers conducting a Virtual Read-Out:



If you're looking for a way to celebrated Banned Books Week that doesn't involve recording and publishing a video of yourself, I recommend reading a book from the American Library Association's Top Ten List of Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2011. Maybe I'll finally get around to reading "The Hunger Games" to celebrate ...

What is your favorite book that you've found on a banned or challenged list?

— Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl

I almost let the week pass without writing the most important book blog entry of the year: It's Banned Books Week!

According to bannedbooksweek.org:

During the last week of September every year, hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. The 2011 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 24 through October 1. Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,000 books have been challenged since 1982.

Read more on Banned Books Week from the American Library Association.

To celebrated Banned Books Week, readers can "proclaim the virtues of their favorite banned books by posting videos of themselves reading excerpts" on YouTube. Find out more about participating in the Virtual Read-Out.

How are you celebrating Banned Books Week? What banned books have you been reading this week?

To mark the occasion, I'm going to revisit one of my favorites: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain (which is available for free download at Project Gutenberg, along with other works in the public domain [some of which are banned books]). But, I will not be reading anything on video to post to YouTube. No one wants to see that anyway.

You can follow Banned Books Week on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube.


-- Cheryl Sadler | CSadler@News-Herald.com | @nhcheryl