I'm sure you know that Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September. Just thought you'd want to know that this year that makes it September 27–October 4. For more info, check out here

My birthday always seems to fall within the Banned Books Week week. ☹ ☺

Do people know that VP nominee Sarah Palin is in favor of banning certain books? I heard that from Tom Brokaw last night during the coverage of the RNC, and I wonder if it's true. Anyone? And if so, isn't this something that should be talked about during banned books week?

Molly, Everything I"ve read indicates it's true. It's possible that she's tried to get her local library to take certain books out of circulation/their collection.

Oh good grief. I thought it was bad enough that Palin was anti-abortion and pro-guns, but being a book banner too?!? No doubt about it, we definately do NOT want McCain in the White House.

Palin not only "had a discussion" with the librarian in question how she felt about possibly censoring certain books if the libraina was asked to, she sent a letter later telling the librarian that she was to be fired because Palin did not feel that she, the librarina, supported her as mayor. In the termination letter, there was no mention of the censorship discussion, but as the letter came so soon after the librarian said under no uncertain terms that she would not censor books that Palin considered inappropriate or questionable, it was pretty clear why she was being fired. The town public came to the librarian's aid and Palin eventually relented in the wake of such public support. The librarian in question eventually resigned on her own.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/2008/v...

Does anyone have any idea what books Palin wanted banned? (Not that it really matters, but could offer insight into her agenda.)

from The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/pol...

Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

Anne Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

In 1996, Ms. Palin suggested to the local paper, The Frontiersman, that the conversations about banning books were “rhetorical.”

I don't think it matters what books she may have been interested in banning. People on both the left & the right have wanted to censor certain books, it doesn't make it right either way. Just that she had asked about it multiple times shows something of her character. I would be highly suspicious of ANYONE asking about taking books off the library shelves.

That librarian's amazing. I mean, seriously, standing up to her like that. Way to go!

But I get scared when I think that if Sarah Palin is in the White House, she controls the country, not just her small Alaska town, so what if he tries to do that on a large scale? What if she tries to ban books nationwide? That would be so bad - I can't express it in words.

...scary thoughts...

Anyway, have a magnificent day.

Just because someone asked: the book in question was a book by a local preacher. A local patron wanted it removed from the library, was refused, then complained. After this, Palin asked about how the librarian would respond to removing books, and there was never any challenge made on the book.

I get the impression this "inquiry" was a confrontational butting of heads by two very willed women; furthermore, it looks more like Palin was simply hoping the librarian would remove the book to please the initial patron who was complaining. She got turned down, then got overzealous and tried to have the librarian dismissed. Good for the librarian who wouldn't back down.

First, bad form on the part of Palin for trying to flex her muscle on the librarian, and for wanting to just "wish" a book out of the library to please someone. But just to be clear, it wasn't Palin hunting down and trying to ban books out of her own self-righteousness or moral imperative - it was responding to someone else's. But she should know better than to enable it.

Daniel, do you have a citation for your information? I am not dismissing you, but I've received several viral emails with lists of books Ms. Palin sought to ban. Trouble is, they are all apocryphal. So, I'd like to form my own impressions. John, thanks for the NYT post. I'm curious about this incident, as I can imagine it going either way: a censor wanting to test the waters, or a supervisor seeking clarification on policy. On a personal level, I wish that I could reject out of hand as preposterous that Ms. Palin - or any public official - would attempt to intercede in a public collection, but I know better. However, I would like to have facts to back up suspicions.

You can check out the story on factcheck.org, a highly reputable, non-partisan organization. What Daniel said is true, based on what I read on factcheck.

Terrible form on Palin's part. Even asking a supposed hypotetical shows a complete lack of understanding of our Constitution. It also shows her desire to micromanage....which can be a bad trait in a leader.

me too!

you all might be interested in this book that just came out: Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath by Rick Wartzman, 9781586483319. Here's the review from Publishers Weekly:
During May of 1939, as the Nazis were burning books throughout Germany, the people of Bakersfield Calif., did exactly the same thing with John Steinbeck’s new bestseller, The Grapes of Wrath . As Wartzman (The King of California ) shows in this intriguing account, the banning of Steinbeck’s masterpiece throughout California’s Kern County was orchestrated by rich local growers: men who were busy exploiting scores of Joad families, the very men Steinbeck exposed in his novel. As a pretext, the growers cited, among other things, Steinbeck’s use of “foul” language (“bastard,” “bitch”) and vivid scenes such as Rose of Sharon, having lost her baby, offering her milk-filled breast to a starving man. One lone librarian, Gretchen Knief, led the charge against the censors, but the book—by then a Pulitzer Prize winner—remained banned a year later. While all this was happening, Steinbeck was suffering the strains of his collapsing first marriage. In telling this unique tale, Wartzman artfully weaves the personal and the political in a book that readers will find engaging on more than one level.
The author will be interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition tomorrow morning (9/30).

I have a "I read banned books" pin from ALA that I like to wear this time of the year. I got it last year and didn't get much response (except from my brother-in-law, not a good family time!) but this year I had 2 different teenagers commit on the pin and both were amazed that book banning happened in the USA! I was "happy" to tell them that it did happen because the more people who are aware of the situation, the better! Maybe they will see a display at the library or a bookstore and pick one up to read.