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Banned Books Week 2010 (Or How I Found A Challenged Book to Read)

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In general principle, I don’t like the idea of banning books. I like the idea of letting people have the freedom to read whatever they want to read.

On the other hand, I don’t think kindergartners should have Lolita read to them. Not necessarily because of the content. I’m going out on a limb here to say that I don’t think there’s a five-year-old who’s going to get the gist of Lolita. So why bore the poor kids?

And here’s another thing. When I see books on one of those banned lists, it just makes me want to go out and read the book. So if you tell teenagers not to read something like The Earth, my Butt and Other Big Round Things (which was one of the 10 most challenged books in 2009), then get out of the way! ‘Cause those 15-year-olds are going to storm bookstores and libraries for that title.

I’m just saying. But you know who says it better? The American Library Association. You might want to see why it’s so important to celebrate the freedom to read during Banned Books Week.

And you can go over to the Banned Books site to find the other books on that Top Ten Challenged list, plus other interesting tidbits. Then go to your favorite bookstore or library and read a banned book.

I’m checking out The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things.  Um, not my personal butt. I mean the book. Because how can you not want to read a fun book like that?

Finding Word Count Info

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I wish I could give a shout out to whomever tweeted about Casey McCormick and her Literary Rambles blog post about word counts for children’s books. Because her post is packed with pithy word count info! (I thought I might come up with another “p” and get all alliterative here, but alas, I was foiled at the end.)

I tag lots of links to read later and never quite get around to reading them. But I’m ever so happy that this time, I zipped over for a quick look-see. Not only does Casey share word count wisdom, but she also has a nifty blog in general. Agent stuff and writing stuff and query stuff and…well, I could go on. But it would probably be best if you just zipped over to check it out yourself.

For what it’s worth, I agree with Casey about staying within the general word count parameters. It’s tough enough to get an agent without sabotaging yourself with a 200,000 word MG manuscript. Oh, and you might want to take a look at some of her resource articles while you’re there.

I found a goldmine of good um, stuff when I happened on Literary Rambles.  (Dang! That last alliteration is STILL eluding me!)