The 27th year of Banned Books Week is fast approaching and we are planning an event-filled week of celebrating and defending our First Amendent.  Started as a response a growing number of challenges in schools, libraries and bookstores, Banned book Week is a national commitment to our freedom to read.  And if you're interested in reading more about banned and challenged books, check out ABFFE(American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression)!

We have these events planned:

1. The Skylight Books Sponsor-a-Book Program:  The best way we know how to promote our freedom to read is to give underserved students the opportunity to read books they choose to read.  Due to the current economic situation which puts an even larger financial pressure on our school system, we are launching Skylight Books Sponsor-a-Book Program in which we ask customers and businesses to buy copies of select titles to teach at these high schools. 

After we asked what books they would like to read, Dorsey High School was the first to reply with a request for 35 copies of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison(challenged in Bakersfield, California and removed from the school curriculum).  We have many high schools in need that have asked to be included in this week long event and please take a look at our Sponsor-a-Book Wish List.  You can purchase on book or decide to sponsor a book for a whole class.  If you decide to participate, you get a discount on the book you decide to purchase and donate.  Please join us in giving back to the community while we support our First Amendment.

2.  First Amendment Open Mic:  On September 26 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. we are starting the week off with a banned/ challenge book week open mic.  Come in and read five minutes worth from our selection of challenged and banned books.  Not only are we inviting you to participate, but we are throwing the gauntlet down for writers, poets, actors, students and teachers to read selections from their favorite banned books.  Contact Monica to sign up.

Here is a

list of titles we will have on hand for you to read from(this is a partial list):

Skylight Books First Amendment Open Mic Reading Selection
1. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
2. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
3. Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
4. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing by Maya Angelou
5. Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
6. Forever by Judy Blume
7. Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
9. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
10. Heart of Darkness by Jospeh Conrad
11. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
12. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
13. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
14. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
15. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
16. Grendel by John Gardener
17. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
18. Looking for Alaska by John Green
19. King & King by Lindade Haan and Stern Nijland
20. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
21. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
22. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
23. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
24. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
25. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
26. Ulysses by James Joyce
27. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
28. Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
29. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
30. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
31. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
32. Serve the People by Yan Lianke
33. The Giver by Lois Lowry
34. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
35. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
36. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
37. Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller
38. Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
39. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
40. 1984 by George Orwell
41. Choke by Chuck Palanuik
42. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
43. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
44. The Book of Bunny Suicides: Little Fluffy Rabbits Who Just Don't Want to Live Anymore by Andy Riley
45. Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. by Luis J. Rodriguez
46. Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
47. Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
48. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
49. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
50. The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
51. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
52. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
53. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
54. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
55. America (The Book) by Jon Stewart
56. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
57. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein
58. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
59. Rabbit Run by John Updike
60. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
61. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
62. This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff
63. Black Boy by Richard Wright
64. A People's History of The United States by Howard Zinn