Last week was Banned Books Week. The fact that we live in America and need to even have such a week freaks me out. It's hard for me to wrap my brain around the notion that people STILL BAN BOOKS ALL ACROSS AMERICA. Everyday. And it's 2008. And now we have a VP candidate, Sarah Palin, who has, in her capacity as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, inquired into whether her town's librarian would consider banning a book. The spin the Republican party is putting on this is that Palin simply asked a question and never actually named a book to be banned. They neglect to mention, however, that the local librarian, who responded to Palin and the rest of the city council that she would not ban a book, was fired two days after the incident. Huh. I doubt it was a coincidence but you can check out various versions of this story here, here, and perhaps the most detailed account here. 

Like many people, I have read a lot of the books that have made it on a banned list: The Handmaid's Tale, The Grapes of Wrath, The Color Purple, everything by Judy Bloom, The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the Harry Potter series, Of Mice and Men, The Catcher in the Rye, A Wrinkle in Time, The Bluest Eye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Flowers for Algernon, A Light in the Attic, Cujo, The House of Spirits, Lord of the Flies, Native Son, Song of Solomon, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Great Gatsby, Their Eyes Were Watching God. And that's just to name a few. The American Library Association (ALA) reports there were more than 3,000 attempts to remove books from schools and public libraries between 2000 and 2005. In an interview with NPR, Judith Krug of the ALA says, "They're not afraid of the book; they're afraid of the ideas."

Afraid of the ideas.

I have made a new goal for myself: to write a book that one day makes it on the Most Frequently Banned Books and Most Challenged Books lists. It's the least I can do for the next generation.

For more information about banned books, visit the ALA website. And then go out and buy one of the books on the list; open it up to the title page and write, "In honor of Sarah Palin;" and donate it to the Wasilla, Alaska public library.