District Wide Information

Banned Book Week - Sept. 22 - 28, 2013

Banned Book Week is one of my favorite times of the year!  This year celebrates 30 years of our freedom to read.  I encourage you to share with your class through books that have been challenged why it is important to raise our awareness about books that have been challenged (where a person or group of people attempt to restrict the access of the book to other people) and perhaps removed from school or academic libraries in our nation. Encourage students to read some of these books to help them decide for themselves or generate a class discussion as to whether the students agree or disagree and why with the challenge.  This can be done at the elementary level to raise awareness at their level of understanding too.  Check out the following resource to learn more information about why the following titles were challenged.  http://www.ila.org/BannedBooks/BBW_2012-2013_Shortlist.pdf

Books for grades 8-12: 
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie 
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman

Books for grades 4-8
Totally Joe by James Howe
Intensely Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Books for elementary aged students: 
The Family Book by Todd Parr
In Our Mothers' House by Patricia Polacco
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
The Dirty Cowboy by Amy Timberlake