This year the week of Sept. 30 through Oct. 6 marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week which celebrates the freedom to read. In a truly ironic twist, James Klise, young person’s author and school librarian, writes in 
this Chicago Tribune commentary from today’s paper that he was invited to speak to 8th graders at a Banned Books program in Kansas and then dis-invited. It seems that the teacher who invited him consulted with her principal and they decided that his award-winning book Love Drugged about a closeted gay teen was simply too edgy for the school’s conservative community. It’s a gentle book, says the author, there’s no sex in it. It was the topic that got him banned, he was told. The teacher told him that despite the dis-invitation, the school library will still carry copies of his books.
Barbara L.