Banned Websites Awareness Day!

Today is Banned Websites Awareness Day!

 

To raise awareness of the overly restrictive blocking of legitimate, educational websites and academically useful social networking tools in schools and school libraries, AASL has designated one day during Banned Books Week as Banned Websites Awareness Day. On Wednesday, September 24, AASL is asking school librarians and other educators to promote an awareness of how overly restrictive filtering affects student learning.   - Source

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has a few excellent resources for those interested in learning more about banned websites - particularly those of you who work with (or have) kids in school!

• How to be a Ninja Warrior Filter Fighter!
• Banned Websites Awareness Day Resources & Activities 

In addition, here are some more great Banned Books Week links!

• Affirm the freedom to read during Banned Books Week 
• Celebrate Banned Books Week with Graphic Novels. 
• Banned Books Week Celebrates Comics 
• Midweek Round Up: Banned Books Week Across the Country 
• Read 14 Great Banned & Censored Novels Free Online: For Banned Books Week 2014 

As grown-ups, we need to respect our children's rights to choose what they want to read. Kids who have fun reading are making a connection in their brains that reading is valuable and rewarding. That very connection is what turns ordinary kids into lifelong readers. - Dav Pilkey, author of the Captain Underpants series, which tops the Banned Books list, in My Book Makes Kids Laugh, And It Was Banned Anyway. (Now go read the whole article.)

Today, I had Swicky and Coconut read The Adventures of Captain Underpants, and we discussed how libraries determine what books they offer, how a book becomes challenged and/or banned, why Captain Underpants, in particular, faces challenges, and the dangers of censorship. I'll talk about all this in my post tomorrow, because I know some of my readers are asking the same questions! 

Links!

• Libraries, Books, & Authors
• Texas - doing Banned Books Week all wrong: Texas school district bans John Green, 6 other authors "A Dallas high school may be looking for a new keynote speaker for its upcoming literary festival—it's kind of hard to speak at a school that's banned your book." Oops.
• The Longest Book in the World 
• The Freedom to Read Foundation files suit against Arizona nude image law 
• Storytime Underground : A peer-friendly space where youth specialists share practical tips 
• Neil Gaiman: ‘Terry Pratchett isn't jolly. He's angry’ 
• Birth of a new world: the Tolkien poem that marks the genesis of Middle-earth "On this day in September 1914, as war broke out, Tolkien created the mythical land that led him to The Lord of the Rings. Here’s the story of the poem that changed his life."
• Need More Romance? There’s An App for That 
• Net & Tech
• Facebook to cut ties with conservative policy group Related: yelp* Another Internet Mainstay Leaves ALEC 
• Science
• Scientists Discover Strange New Brain Cell Shape 
• Firelight Talk of the Kalahari Bushmen : Did Tales Told Over Fires Aid Our Social and Cultural Evolution? 
• Destruction of Amazon Rainforest Visible From Space 
• Common Misconceptions About Global Warming 
• Authority Issues
• Obama Brings Up Ferguson at U.N. 
• A day of unrest in Ferguson ends with protesters and police facing off
• Three West Virginia Cops Choke, Batter Man with Huntington's Disease 
• Pregnant woman thrown, held belly-down to the ground by NYPD cop in Brooklyn  
• Deaf Man Fatally Shot By Florida Deputy After Allegedly 'Brandishing Firearm' 
• Walmart Shooting: No indictments against officers in special grand jury Related: Surveillance video: John Crawford III at Walmart I cannot tell you how disappointed and angry this makes me. Given that it's an open-carry state, given the footage, it's obvious to me that the police had no reason to shoot Crawford, even if they thought the gun was real. He was not doing anything that could be construed as threatening, and didn't seem to hear any warnings to put the gun - and, remember, it's a toy gun - down. I'll be interested to see what the Justice Department makes of the incident.
• Police are not the only authorities with issues: Girl Allegedly Raped After School Uses Her As ‘Bait' In Sexual Harassment Sting: Suit
• Other
• Billboards That Double as Homeless Housing May Soon Pop Up in the U.S. 
• Yearning for knowledge "Homeless and out of work, Quaris Carter feared he'd never escape the poverty that engulfed him as a child and young man - not without an education."
• The Most Influential College In Every State 
• Stephen Colbert Says Charles Krauthammer Is 'Kind Of A Dick'  He ain't wrong.
• Massachusetts GOP Candidate Dismisses Reporter’s Questions, Calls Her “Sweetheart”