VIDEO: What would YOU do if someone tried to ban your book?

As a fan of literature, it annoys me when people try to, or do, ban books. As a writer though, I'd never contemplated what it would be like if someday people ever tried to ban a book I wrote.

Well, today's technology lets me get a peek at what that's actually like, in the moment. I can hear, from the author himself, what it's like for an author I respect to have his work called pornographic, to have his work described as something that causes "immoral thoughts and actions in children." Strangely, while "they" say the book encourages kids to have sex, the author explains quite articulately about why, actually, it does quite the opposite ...



The book in question, "Looking for Alaska" by John Green, already needed a parental OK in the class to read due to sensitive subjects (and that I can handle because parents should be able to have a say in what's OK for their own kids), but a group of people who don't even have kids in the class are apparently trying to remove the choice completely. Apparently they know better. And that kind of pisses me off.

It's bizarre. And I appreciate John's commentary on which has to be a very personally insulting matter. (And now I really want to read the book ...)