Anti-Censorship Video Features Challenged Authors

This is pretty cool, though I had to laugh that they "bleeped" the expletives. In a censorship video! Ha!

Seriously, it is so important that we protect our childrens' right to read. We adults must provide age-appropriate access to all kinds of books, written from all kinds of perspectives, and a illustrating a variety of viewpoints. That's what the real world is all about.  Okay, stepping off soapbox now.

 

Here's the plug Maryann Yin, on Galleycat.com (December 2, 2011) gave the video:

Penguin Group has released an anti-censorship video featuring 20 different authors. All of the participating writers had their books challenged or banned. Recently, award-winning writer Meg Rosoff was dropped from a UK kids literature festival because the organizers deemed her latest work, There is No Dog, to be “blasphemous.” Last year, a Texas YA lit festival famously cut Crank trilogy author Ellen Hopkins from their lineup.

Also in 2010, Speak author Laurie Halse Anderson battled with a Missouri college professor who labeled her work as “soft pornography.” Just this week, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) gave Anderson the Free Speech Defender award.