American Libraries

Matt Ryd: (Singing) We're not going to take it. No, we ain't gonna to take it. We're not gonna to take it anymore.

Judith Krug: This is the kick off for Banned Books Week 2008 and we are in Pioneer Court, right next the Chicago Tribune building. And we have 15 authors with us who have been banned or challenged. And we're reading from the banned and challenged books.

Luis Alberto Urrea: I'm going to talk about talk about Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me Ultima. And it's banned for perhaps, in my opinion, the most painful reason: not for language, not for sex, not for politics, it's banned essentially for spiritual and religious reasons.

Stephen Chbosky: I was just very, very troubled that so many good people could let themselves get treated so badly. And I wanted to know why. And I wanted to end a silence because I think maybe a lot of people would agree that other than violence or abuse, silence is the worst thing that can happen to any relationship.

Dave Anderson: It's vital that we call attention to our First Amendment freedoms. Most people go through life happily unaware of some of the risks to their freedoms. And we want to highlight that there are people who would limit the opportunities to read various books.

Lois Lowry: My only granddaughter lives in Germany—is growing up there—and it's ironic that in Germany in the tenth grade—the grade she'll be in next year—they use The Giver in the public schools as a way of beginning to teach German contemporary history. They use it to teach about the seduction of totalitarianism. It's a very brave thing for them to do, I think, in Germany. The book has been published in 26 countries and languages and here's the irony: the United States is the only country in which it has been challenged.

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor: I think one of the saddest e-mails or fan letters that I ever got was a bundle of letters from a classroom and they were obviously dictated. And I know the teacher had dictated them because they all misspelled the word "vulgar, v-u-l-g-e-r."

Matt Ryd: (Singing) We're right, we're free, we'll fight, you'll see.

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor: Unknown the teacher, after kids had folded the letters, two of the boys, with a very sharp, pointed pencil wrote in that crease, so small I could barely read it, "But we love your book anyway." (Laughter)

Justin Richardson: We only had to write the book. But for the last several years there have been people working actively working to defend it and this is sort of for them.

Ron Koertge: “Tonnie flounced up and starts telling rob how he was soooooooooo funny during English and how it was soooooooooo great that he got mr. Kirk to give everyone an extension on their papers, and I was like, “go away, tonnie! U r sooooooooooo annoying and that T-shirt is so ugly. It was super-tight across and had the word "trouble" written in sequins. Gag.”

Lauren Myracle: "Did you really say that to her, that she was annoying?"

Ron Koertge: "No, but I wanted to."

Jim Rettig: Well, librarians all around the country are doing displays with banned books this week; they're doing read-outs; they're doing author readings; they're bringing attention to this important topic in various ways.

Camila Alire: There are too many good lessons learned in this book for it to be banned.

Judy Blume: I want to tell you about a teacher. I used to correspond with this teacher in Louisville and he said that every year at the beginning of fifth grade he read Blubber aloud to his class. And it's a story of bullying. It's a tough story. But he said that reading that story at the beginning of the school year set a tone for kindness in his classroom.

Judith Krug: In our big Banned Books Week Resources Guide, we have 16 pages of ideas on what they can do. And we also have a web site now, www.bannedbooksweek.org, which lists events all over the country. That's new this year and we did that in conjunction with American Bookseller's Foundation for Free Expression.

Matt Ryd: (Singing) No we're not going to take it anymore.