YOU CAN'T HAVE THAT BOOK!

That would be these books:

Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman, by Paul Zindel
Lord of the Flies, by Wiliam Golding
What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Because they're on the list of Most Banned Books for Teens.

And because it's Banned Books Week, you should check them out from Culbreth Library and read them.

Because you can.

And I don't know about you, but when someone says, "You can't have that," particularly if they say "because it will be bad for you," I want to find out what that's all about.

You should also go to ASIF and see which cool authors are "Authors Supporting Intellectual Freedom." Some of our favorites are there, including Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak), Justine Larbalestier (Magic or Madness), and Jeanne DuPrau (City of Ember) with about 25 others.

Celebrate your freedom to read 'em!

What More Can I Ask?

Two of my Favorite authors Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld, interview each other. It's a podcast, which means it's like a radio show you can listen to on your computer. You can, of course, download them to your iPod if you happen to have one, but really, you don't have to.

So how many of you listen to podcasts or read your favorite author's blogs?

Just Like Airborn! (Well, Almost)

Today, a whole team is working to explore the crashed remains of a real-true airship. If you've read Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel, you know that an airship is a blimp: a helium filled football-shaped balloon that people can fly around.

Airborn is a fantasy book that imagines what it would be like if that's what we used to get around instead of airplanes. Rich people using it to travel, poor people working on it - and airship pirates attacking them!

Well, it turns out, in 1935, the Armed Forces really truly used airships as flying aircraft carriers. One crashed off the coast of California in 1935. They are using robots to look at the wreck. The story is here.

Scott Westerfeld and Me! And Justine and Karin...

As many of you already know, I am a *really* big fan of Scott Westerfeld. So I was thrilled to meet him at the American Library Association Conference in New Orleans in June.

I was also delighted to meet Justine Larbalestier, his wife, who wrote such a great book, _Magic or Madness_ and its sequel. I was really glad that my friend Karin, the public librarian, was there with me, to remind me of all the questions I had to ask Scott. I am happy to say that he answered them very politely. :D