In the lull between the bailout votes and before the vice-presidential debate, we all should take a minute to honor and reflect on Banned Books week. As I noted in a recent post about Sarah Palin,http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patricia-zohn/culture-zohn-swift-bookin_b_125676.html , the problem of challenges to certain books on our library shelves and in our school curriculae is not going away any time soon and very much reflects the pernicious effects of fundamentalist credo creeping into the mainstream.
Books are not dead. They live forever, even if they are now in a Kindle or on line. Blacklisting in any form is not to be tolerated--least of all when choice makes it possible for those who don't wish to partake to leave them on the shelves or in cyberspace.
This would be a great week to go to your library, with or without a child in hand, and check out something from the list of the most Banned Books (again, see links in my Swift Booking post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patricia-zohn/culture-zohn-swift-bookin_b_125676.html).
You would honor our librarians, you would honor our first amendment and you would honor the millions of writers who work mostly with little compensation to digest the world for us and bring it to us on platter between two covers.