Celebrating Banned Books Week

I was lucky as a child, for I had parents who let me devour whatever book came my way.  This was bad in some instances, as a child’s taste isn’t always that great.  I missed out on some classics I should have been reading, and reading Stephen King at the ripe old age of nine.

All of this to say, despite their rather conservative political views, my parents never, not once, restricted what I read.  My parents believed in the power of reading; my dad, to this day, states, “If you can read well, you can teach yourself anything.”  I don’t know necessarily that they expected to end up with an English professor daughter, but there we are, at that.

Celebrate banned books week.  We’re reading The Hunger Games in my Teaching Literature course, and we will discuss banned books in depth this week.  Celebrate reading.  Celebrate diversity.  Read.  Read as much as you can, whenever you can.

Read everything you get your hands on.

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