#Speakloudly: Two Books Have Been Banned.

I'm sorry, I know I said I was going on a blogging hiatus but I had to blog about this.  If you see a flaming ball of fire somewhere in southwest Missouri, that would be me.

Remember the #Speakloudly campaign? (you can find my original post here.)  Mr. Scroggins tried to get three books banned from the Republic MO school district: Speak, Twenty Boy Summer, and Slaughterhouse Five.  He succeeded in getting two of the three banned.  Republic schools will no longer keep Twenty Boy Summer or Slaughterhouse Five on their shelves.  And get this: only 1 out of the 4 board members who voted read the books.

He managed to get two books banned from a school district in which he has no children attending at the moment.  I'm at a loss for words so I will let Sarah Ockler take over:

Banned, but never ashamed (she references the article and has a link for it on her blog you can get to from there.)

The superintendent is basically calling his students immature.  He believes they aren't old enough to handle the very things they witness in their own lives.

Please never give up the fight to keep books on the shelves.  Our world isn't some sparkly wonderful fairytale full of rainbows and unicorns.  These problems do exist and if these brave authors that write about them are silenced, our teens who need help the most will be silenced.

#Speakloudly: in my own backyard

Imagine my horror when I opened up my blogger account last night and started to read through the blogs I subscribe to.  It started at first with someone mentioning a Missouri man who wanted to ban Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler from his local public school.  I immediately thought, "Oh great, another Missouri book banning." and "What the heck- why Speak?"  Then, there was a link to the opinion piece he wrote into our newspaper- here is the link. 

My stomach flipped up to my throat as I saw my own town as the subject.  He's trying to get books banned from MY town's schools.  They've already removed Slaughterhouse Five apparently.

Speak is about a girl who is being raped and dealing with the horrors that come with it.  Mr. Scroggins called it pornographic.  Ms. Anderson stated on her blog that she gets many many emails and letters from students saying her book finally helped them to speak out.  To get help form the horrors I hope my own daughter never has to face.  We can't shield our children from this reality- they need to know about it.  How to deal with it when it happens to them, and not to stay silent. 

I know I just had a post on the incident in Stockton, and this makes #2 in a week.  But I can't sit by while this happens in my town.  The school my daughter goes to.

The author of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson got wind about this and blogged about it yesterday here.

That caused an explosion of blogs, tweets and posts on the Internet about this case. 

Lisa and Laura Hilton, authors of Liar Society, are doing a contest where they will donate a copy of Speak to a school/library for every 25 comments to their post here

Here is a blog post by an ACTUAL TEENAGER.  OMG, shield your eyes for the evil corruption spewing out of her blog. 

Another contest- Sarah Ockler, the author of Twenty Boy Summer (one of the books mentioned by Scroggins) is giving away a Wesley Scroggins Filthy Book Prize Pack here

Please, if you want to take a stand and Speak out, write to the Superintendent Vern Minor or to the high school principal. 

NO ONE has the right to censor what your child reads besides you.  If you don't want them to read it, then fine.  But don't tell my child what she can or can't read.  I will decide that for myself.