Banned Books Blog Hop & Giveaway

Banned Books Week, this year falling September 24 – October 1, is an annual event in the USA which draws attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted banning of books.

Banned books aren’t always what you expect. While some include vulgar language, violence or extreme messages, others are far more benign. Books that have been banned in the past include*:

• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, which was removed from classrooms in Stafford County, Virginia for crude language and encouraging children to disobey their parents and other adults.
• The Call of the Wild by Jack London was banned in Italy (1929), Yugoslavia (1929) for being “too wild”, and burned in Nazi bonfires (1932).
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson was banned because of “anti-religion, language, and discussion of death.”
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Banned in Ireland (1932) and removed from classroom in Montana in 1980, because it made promiscuous sex “look like fun”. (The nerve!)
• Black Beauty by Anna Sewell was banned in South Africa in 1955 because of the title.
• And finally, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was banned in China in 1931 for portraying animals and humans on the same level.

I am a Reader Not a Writer and I Read Banned Books have organized and are hosting a blog hop giveaway to mark Banned Books Week. Canada doesn’t actually participate in the Week, as we have Freedom to Read Week each February, but as it is a year round and important issue, I wanted to join in anyway.
Over 250 participating blogs are offering a book related giveaway and we are all linked up together so you can easily hop from one giveaway to another.  The hop runs from Saturday September 24 to Saturday October 1. The full list of participating blogs is available at I Read Banned Books.

Giveaway details:

Up for grabs is a $15 gift certificate to buy books at Chapters.ca,  Amazon.ca or any other online retailer of your choice that sells books and has a way for me to send you a $15 online gift certificate. (Note: If there is a way for me to buy you a gift certificate to your local independent bookstore, I would be thrilled to do so. We’ll discuss when a winner is chosen.)

I highly encourage you to consider using the prize to purchase a book from a banned/challenged book list. If you want to argue against the banning of books, it is important to have read and know the content of the books being challenged.

There are some helpful lists at:

http://www.banned-books.com/bblist.html

http://www.listal.com/list/banned-burned-censored

http://www.freedomtoread.ca/censorship_in_canada/challenged_books.asp

How to enter:

To enter giveaway please leave a comment below, indicating your favourite banned or challenged book including a description of what you learned from reading it.

Optional Extra Entry:

+1 Subscribe to the blog by email/RSS/etc.

*Reference for all above, also verified by further Google searches:  http://www.listal.com/list/banned-burned-censored