![Cover of Perks of Being a Wallflower]](http://literatehousewife.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Cover-of-Perks-of-Being-a-Wallflower.jpg "Cover of Perks of Being a Wallflower]")
In 2008 I saw all of the wonderful coverage of Banned Books Week by other book bloggers and vowed to myself that I would participate this year. This year, I was sick and wasn’t even able to squeak out a post on Lolita, which is one of my personal favorite novels. Last week, after receiving a complaint from a single parent, William Byrd High School in Vinton, VA removed two copies of The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky from their school library. This parent, who admitted to never reading the book, was very concerned that a teacher gave a copy of it to a student who, in turn, gave it to his son. This high school is about 15 minutes from my house. It’s in the county next to ours. Here is a link to the story.
When my husband sent me this link, I was appalled that one parent’s issue can have a book removed from a school library. While he is free to raise his children as he sees fit, who is he to decide whether another child should have access to a book? I decided that if one parent can attempt to discourage people from reading a book, I would try to encourage as many people as possible. I tweeted about the article and posted about it on Facebook to see if anyone else would be interested in reading it with me. One of my best buddies Mark agreed to join me almost immediately. Susan from my Historical Fiction Lovers book club also bought the book. Others have either already read it or expressed interested, so I decided to forge ahead.
My initial thought was to start a Facebook event and leave it open for a month. The problem with events is that they just have a wall. A wall is fine, but hard to read through. Instead, I created a Facebook Book Club just for this book. That way people can review the book through the Discussion Guide, can post on the wall, and topics can be created for specific conversations. If you would like to join us, here is a link to the book club. It’s easy if you are already on Facebook. If not, joining Facebook doesn’t take long – especially if you’re only interested in using the Book Clubs feature.
This book club is open to anyone and I would love to have you take part in our discussion!
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I’m continuously astonished at how damaging some perceive books to be. When I read Perks of Being a Wallflower, I was moved. I imagined how moving it would be for a teen going through those situations to find solace in not being alone when he read the book. My only solace in book banning is that banning books only makes teens want to read them more. The few books my mother told me I couldn’t read (such as Sweet Valley High when I was in second grade – the joys of cool, older cousins and being an advanced reader), I simply read at school. As a leftist librarian and non-yet-mother, I’d rather know what my kids are reading, let them ask me questions and read with them.
It is truly appalling to think that one or two parents could have a book removed from a library that is meant to serve the interests and tastes of hundreds of students. I hate book bans and believe that we have to monitor what our children are reading…not have someone else impose that on us. Thank you for organizing this event. I’m not sure I will have time to participate with everything I have going on right now but I will add this one to my TBR pile for sure!
I’m on the hold list for this book at the library – there’s one hold ahead of me, so I’m not sure if I’ll get it in time, but if I do, I’ll definitely sign up.
One thing that’s always bothered me is the number of people who are so vocal about banning a book, who’ve never even read the book. Wanting to ban a book is bad enough, but wanting to ban it even though you’ve never read it is even worse, to me.
I’m appalled that the school would remove a book based on the complaint of one person. I wonder what they would do if someone else complained that it wasn’t available in the library for their child to check out.
[...] I posted Friday, a parent at a local high school became upset when his son came upon a copy of The Perks of Being a [...]
I can’t fathom why a person who has not read a book would challenge it…how can you have a leg to stand on to defend your position about challenging the book?!
[...] Everyone was reading and discussing the book. Jennifer at The Literate Housewife not only challenged her blog readers to read the book but started a book club on Facebook and reviewed the book on her blog. I [...]