Banned book week is here! Thanks to inspiration from Kim and the Exploratorium museum, ideas from Lynn - we came up with a few displays. In addition- we teamed up the public school librarian to present 1st amendment rights using Vamos a Cuba and the Miami Dade County School District.

All in all, we saw over 400 students and I really feel that after playing a parent, student, judge, librarian or even a school board member- they wrestled with what a book challenge is all about. Many thanks to Kathleen, my Longmont Public Library partner. It was cool!

¡prohibamos los libros!

Here I am getting ready for banned ALA's Banned Book week September 24-30 and this great story pops up from Miami Dade County School Board banning a book. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the decision stating that they had violated the rights of students and parents, and sent the issue to Federal Court.

I looked up several of the stories that surround this issue, and it is quite emotional. I wonder how we get our students to struggle with ways to combat inaccuracies in the books. Of course I would love for this to happen without removing books, perhaps by finding more stories to stack on our bookshelves. Here is the news from the Sun-Sentinal:

A federal judge sided with the ACLU, ordering the books back on the shelves in a preliminary injunction, but the school board voted Aug. 22 to appeal that decision.

Ronald Bilbao, 18, immediate past president of the Miami-Dade County Student Government Association and a plaintiff in the ACLU suit, served on the district-level review committee, which voted 15-1 to keep the book.

"It's ridiculous that we go to school to learn and to have every educational tool available to us and the school board is hindering our education by removing tools like books," he said.

Hmm, how do we stimulate our students to help them to think and speak in mature ways? Looking for ideas....~guybrarian
Listen to NPR BOOK podcast about this issue!