Banned Books Week 2016 – Reading and Giveaway!

For more than 30 years, Banned Books Week has brought together people from across the book community – authors and publishers, librarians, booksellers, teachers and readers – to celebrate and fight to protect the freedom to read.

This Friday, September 30^th at 7pm I will be taking part in a Banned Books celebration at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, where I will be joining a great group of YA authors and librarians to read from some of our favorite books which have been banned or challenged in schools and public libraries over the years. The other readers will include YA/children’s authors Joy Preble, Anna Meriano and Varsha Bajaj, as well as Houston area librarians Megan Robertson, Cory Eckert and Melissa Buron. And you might be surprised by some of the books we've chosen.

We’d love to see you at Brazos Books on Friday, but even if you can’t make it, to mark my first Banned Books Week event, here’s a GIVEAWAY you can enter!

WIN A 
BANNED BOOKS MUG 

AND 

A BANNED BOOK 

OF YOUR CHOICE*

To enter, just leave me a comment below, on my Facebook page, or on Twitter @carolinesblurb. Tell me the title of your favorite Banned Book and why having the freedom to read it was so important to you.

After Friday’s event, I will pick the best reply, and the winner can choose a title from any shown in the picture above (some of my Banned Book favorites). I’ll send you a mug and a brand new copy of the book of your choice, as well as some swag for my forthcoming YA historical debut, WAIT FOR ME (Harper Teen, January 31^st 2017).

For more details about Banned Books Week and the importance of the freedom to read, visit the American Library Association website, where you’ll also find lists of the most frequently challenged books.

If you win, you can choose to receive a new copy of one of the following books:

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD – Harper Lee

ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND – Lewis Caroll

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE – CS Lewis

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME – Mark Haddon

THE GIVER – Lois Lowry

HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy (any one of the three books) – Philip Pullman

ELEANOR & PARK – Rainbow Rowell

TWILIGHT – Stephanie Meyer

HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN – J K Rowling

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS – John Green

THE OUTSIDERS - SE Hinton

Guest post: How to shut up your inner editor

Probably the most important lesson I learned from taking part in the wonderful torture that is NaNoWriMo - that's National Novel Writing Month - was to keep going, keep putting down words, and to get the first draft finished so that you canstart having fun with the revisions all the sooner.

You can read more of my thoughts about switching off your inner editor - you know, that voice in your head that keeps telling you what you have just written is awful and should be changed immediately? - here on ReadWriteLove28, a fun blog for readers and writers.

My guest post is part of the blog's Sweet & Swanky event which is running throughout September. Thanks for having me on the blog, Nori!