Wrap Up {Banned Books Week}

First of all, a BIG thank you to everyone who has joined me on this journey and celebration of Banned Books Week! This week took a crazy amount of behind the scenes work. I feverishly re-vamped ideas, wrote patterns from scratch, and tried to add all my creative ideas while being under a deadline. It has been a wild ride for me but I hope everyone has enjoyed it and learned something new!

 
I have linked ALL of the featured posts below, in case you missed any.

Introduction to Banned Books Week

Day #1: Charlotte's Web

Day #2: The Wizard of Oz

Day#3: The Lorax

Day#4: Where the Wild Things Are with guest post by children's lit guru Marissa

Day#5: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Day#6: The Harry Potter Series with guest post from Harry Potter fan club president Katie

Day#7: Wrap-up with guest post from librarian Mary

And be sure to check out my Etsy shop where all items are for sale! 

Today I have a final wrap-up post for you along with an update on some of my creations from last Friday, as promised.

I must confess that I am not much of a writer. Consequently I have had a hard time expressing my ideas and thoughts about how important it is that challenged books remained free from censorship. Today I have a fantastic guest post from my very favorite librarian Mary! She is currently a librarian at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. But I met Mary way back in our sophomore year of college and we have been best friends ever since. She is sassy, fun, smart, and always up for an adventure. I love having conversations with her because she always thinks outside the box. So I thought who better to learn from about ALA's Banned Books Week than her?! 

Here she is:

"Banned Books Week is big in the library world, and as a librarian who has worked in both a public library and a couple of academic libraries I am so glad it stays so “front and center” in my profession. Banned Books Weeks pulls together threads and needs across the community and gives us an opportunity to talk about censorship, safe places, and difficult stories.




Banned Books Week is where we celebrate some of the books that “cause trouble” in my neck of the woods. The titles that make the “100 most challenged” lists are the books that parents and library users have complained about their inclusion in library/school collections. Our users' concerns are genuine and real and valuable, but so is the content they are pushing against, and that friction can be difficult to navigate. The American Library Association firmly believes that challenged books should not be banned/censored, a stance I’m happy to support. Some of my favorite books, the books that shook my world, added a new layer of complexity to my thoughts, changed who I was and who I wanted to be are on this list. Books that gave me nightmares are on the list. These books are frequently upsetting, explicit, difficult, profanity ridden, or racist. These are the books that are our stories, our challenging, bad, broken, painful, scary, brilliant, and different stories. They are the pieces in our world that are complex and so so so important. I will support every person’s right to challenge the books, and I want to hear their concerns, but I will also fight for those books place in the collection.




Banned Books Week is particularly important to me because it demonstrates a need. Books that have content that frequently get banned or challenged are books we need more of. We are in desperate need of books that challenge the 1950’s default established in white suburban America (since that utopia never was and never will be). We need books about families from different racial backgrounds, with different orientations, and who have experienced adoption (especially books that discuss that adoption isn’t always an easy transition for children or parents). We need books about biracial families, about blended families, about families with divorced parents, with foster children, with children who have died, or with parents who are gone. We need books where children go on wild adventures and come through victorious, even if they have scary moments. We need these books because these are the stories of our world, of our children’s worlds and we don’t have enough books that tell their stories. Let’s not censor the books we do have on difficult topics. Instead let’s come together and have a conversation about why Nappy Hair is fun to read out loud but rarely is read that way, or why A Night in the Kitchen has a naked boy. Let’s talk about the scary things, and create a space for those things to be conquered together." 

Thank you so much Mary! A prefect reflection as I wrap-up our week. I also wanted to tie up the lose ends from my Alice's Adventures in Wonderland post, because I finished a couple more tea party friends. 

I totally re-vamped my dormouse to have his colors match the Disney classic version. I also gave him an un-birthday hat, of course! Find him in my Etsy shop here.






I finally finished up my Alice as well. She took a long time as I completely wrote the pattern myself!
 



Her hair is actually made from a tiny wig that I created just for her. A ton of work, but I love the result.

You can find them both for sale in my Etsy shop here. 

Again, another BIG thank you to all my guest posters, and everyone who has participated this week! I can't ever do it without you. :D