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This Year's Reflections on Banned Books Week

... or as I think I'm going to start calling it, Librarian Christmas, the most hyped (by librarians) library holiday of the year. I've been dutifully wearing my "i read banned books" bracelet all week and awaiting patron questions about our banned books displays.

I've written in past years about how I'm sort of over Banned Books Week, but I keep getting pulled back in when I hear about some of the ridiculous books people are trying to ban. This year's is one I just read for the first time this summer, Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. Apparently it was considerate too graphic and inappropriate for a high school audience. Interesting, considering the story's narrator is in elementary school. Basically, it has the usual collection of difficult to discuss ideas: violence, death, questioning faith in God, a child's confusion about how adult sexual relationships work, but since it's all told from the point of view of a 6-year-old, it's not terribly graphic and mostly about the confusion that growing up brings.

Another point brought up that I hadn't thought about lately is that maybe we shouldn't call it Banned Books Week, since the majority of the books have only been challenged, not actually banned Read the responses to @himissjulie's tweet for more thoughts on this, as well as Kelly Jensen's thoughtful article at Book Riot on how we shouldn't be celebrating censorship.

Alright, I've officially celebrated Banned Books Week with this post. You can now return to your regular library programming.
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