Ban Baby Ban...
One of my favorite authors, Ann Patchett, recently announced that two of her books, The Patron Saint of Liars and Bel Canto, were banned by the Orange County, Florida school system.
Ann, who’s a New York Times-bestselling author, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for "Bel Canto," finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2012, has been left scratching her head as to why those two books were specifically selected for banning.
Florida, the proud front-runner of book banning, removed over 1400 books in the 2022-23 school year, and nearly 700, including Ann Patchett’s books, were removed in Orange County alone at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year.
Read the full article and watch Ann’s humorous tongue-in-cheek video here.
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
Serenity Township
Great post! Thank you.
Well Street
"Proponents say the restrictions are meant to protect children from sexually graphic and explicit stories..." If that were true, neither of these books would have been banned.
I do love her opinion about the situation in Florida, especially how she thinks the state would be happy with a book where people are shot.
Evangel
I love her writing. Too bad others won't have access to it. It reminds me of the little toy soldier sets that were sold long ago with all the soldiers lined up pointing rifles at their enemies. Whether it's banning books for being inappropriate or cancelling people for being inappropriate, it seems we're stuck in tit for tat mode where we can't see the forest for the trees. Thanks for sharing this article.