On Censorship

Over the past week, I've read many insightful comments and discussions regarding censorship and book bans. This subject evokes a fiery passion in my mind and heart, a burning anger that it is difficult to quell.

For me, one of the greatest gifts we humans possess is our ability to make choices, to exercise our free will. Choosing what we read and don't read is an expression of that will.

As a reader with an acutely sensitive conscience, there are many books with subject matter that I choose not to read for various reasons. That is my choice. But to presume to inflict my conscience on others would, I believe, be an inappropriate violation of the gift of choice.

I am grateful for children's authors who have the courage to write about subjects close to their hearts. I am also grateful for publishers who are not afraid to publish books on controversial subjects, teachers and librarians who make these books available to young readers, bookstores that give them space on their shelves.

If anyone wants to campaign to make certain books unavailable to others, let them first sacrifice their own gift of free will, their right to choose reading material for themselves.

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING LATELY: Suite Scarlett and Scarlett Fever (M. Johnson) Black Box (J. Schumacher) Losing Faith (D. Jaden) Faith, Hope, and Ivy Jane (P. Reynolds Naylor) Freak Magnet (A. Auseon) Glimpse (C. Lynch Williams)