Censorship is alive and well in the United States. Someone will object to something in any book. But it takes amazing gall to prevent others from reading what one does not like.

Banned Books Week this year, 2013, is September 22-28. I just received my copy of The Painted Bird a few days ago. I plan to read it that week.

In tenth grade, this book was assigned to us. It was the most difficult book I had read to that point, but it was also by far the one I wanted to finish most. Traumatic is a good word to describe reading this book. And it has taken a couple decades to want to try reading it again.

Due to a number of parents complaining about the book, our teacher took back the copies. I marked this book as read on Goodreads, but I do not think now I really did finish it. So I plan on finishing it and making it right.

A few months ago I read The Kite Runner which apparently is in the top 10 banned books this year. Currently I am reading The Poisonwood Bible which my twelfth grade teacher left her job over the school not supporting her assigning it. (I kind of get how Baptist parents would object to the negative portrayal of a family of them as missionaries in the 1960s Congo as clueless.) I do not TRY to read banned books, but I guess I am just lucky. Maybe I am making up for last year not reading any?