An Interview with Justin Stanley of Uprise Books
You may not have noticed from all of the posts on this blog, but it’s Banned Books Week! You all saw my awesome bulletin board to celebrate the week. My students have all seen it, too, and they are outraged to find some of their favorite titles on the list. They are also very interested in reading some of the other books they saw on the board, and were excited to find out that we will be reading several of them this year in class.
This is English Teacher 101. You want a kid to read? Tell them the book is banned, and they will want to read it.
That’s Justin Stanley’s idea, too. His nonprofit, Uprise Books, puts banned and challenged books into the hands of underprivilged kidsfor free. Fighting censorship and promoting literacy? Yes please!
I was fortunate enough to get an interview with Justin for my Banned Books Week post at Care2.com. Here’s a little teaser:
Ashley: What is the most dangerous part about censorship, in your opinion?
Justin: I think that the bans and challenges usually come from a good place, from a desire to protect children from what the adults see as the ugliness in the world. Unfortunately, covering your child’s eyes doesn’t really make the ugliness go away; it only makes them less equipped to deal with it on their own.
Go read the whole interview! It’s pretty awesome.
Check out all of my Banned Books Week 2012 posts here!
Photo Credit: wanderingone