Celebrate the First Amendment-Read a Banned Book!

Banned Book Week Starts September 26

GHPALS members are a great believers in the US Constitution's first amendment. The one that gives us free speech. The one that lets US citizens say whatever dumb and stupid thing we want. The one that lets us offend each other. The one that we should all honor by remembering the words we were all taught in childhood, "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

From time to time threats to that freedom crop up and people need to be reminded of our First Amendment rights. 

Banned Book Week was created by a national alliance of organizations committed to the freedom to read whatever we want whenever we want.  Naturally the  Comic Book Legal Defense Fund  is one of them (if you haven't already, donate to it now). We're big supporters of it.

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Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982 according to the American Library Association.

This year Banned Books Week is September 25-October 1.

Join the GHPALS in reading one of the 10 most challenged titles of 2015, according to the American Library Association:

1. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
2. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
3. I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
4. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Peak Out, by Susan Kuklin
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
6. The Holy Bible
7. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
8. Habibi, by Craig Thompson
9. Nasreen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter
10. Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan

Next week our blog will report members answers to the following prompts:

• Which book would you to to jail defending?
• Which banned book character would you want to have lunch with?
• Who in your life has most influenced your love of books and your right to read.
• Which banned book would you memorize to prevent being lost to the sands of time?
• If you could go back in time, which book would you give your younger self?

Think about what your own answers would be.