Penguin Group has released an anti-censorship video featuring 20 different authors (video embedded above).
What are some of your favorite banned books? Join the conversation at the #freespeechmatters hashtag.
All of the participating writers had their books challenged or banned. Recently, award-winning writer Meg Rosoff was dropped from a UK kids literature festival because the organizers deemed her latest work, There is No Dog, to be “blasphemous.” Last year, a Texas YA lit festival famously cut Crank trilogy author Ellen Hopkins from their lineup.
Also in 2010, Speak author Laurie Halse Anderson battled with a Missouri college professor who labeled her work as “soft pornography.” Just this week, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) gave Anderson the Free Speech Defender award.