We Will Not Be Silenced. We Will Speak Loudly As Long As We Breathe.

You have obviously heard about today's cruel injustice done to lovers of YA and books in general by a small paper in Missouri and a certain delusional man going by the name of Wesley Scroggins. I have never read Speak (but trust me, I will be very soon), nor the other books he mentioned, Twenty Boy Summer or Slaughterhouse Five. But that doesn't mean that this man, or anyone, for that matter, has the right to say I don't.

I showed a friend who had read the book, and she insisted that he had obviously not read the book (I, personally, have to question if he even read the summary) and should be ashamed of himself. I wholeheartedly agree with my awesome friend, even though I've never read the novel. Rape is, never has been, and never will be anything resembling "soft pornography", which is what Scroggins' so disgustingly said. Here is my letter to the editor:

I cannot begin to tell you how disgraceful I find Wesley Scroggins' article, demanding a book ban on Twenty Boy Summer and Speak and calling Speak "soft pornography." Let me just say that he clearly hasn't read Speak and probably not even the summary.

If he finds rape (including a teenage girl) pornographic then he is obviously sick and has no place telling children what to and not to read and I honestly hope he receives the help he so desperately needs.

In fact, as an avid reader, NO ONE should be telling me or any other minors what to read unless they are our guardians. It's one of the things that I love about this country, and as a newspaper editor, I'm sure you agree.

I hope you and Mr. Scroggins realize just how many readers, writers, and rape victims you've infuriated to heights we didn't know possible. Here is my blog post, including this letter and links to other bloggers' thoughts. Combined, we have thousands of readers. Thousands of readers who will not stand for this, and will continue to speak out against book banning.

There isn't much more I feel like I can say, but here's just a few wonderful bloggers and who found different views and words to use:

Laurie Halse Anderson, Author of Speak
Word For Teens
Good Books and Wine
The Story Siren
A.S. King
Consumed by Books 
Bibliophilia-Maggie's Bookshelf 
Emile's Book World
Holes In My Brain
And there are countless others that I can't wait to read. (If you have a post, please comment giving me the link and I will gladly read and link to yours as well.)

#Speakloudly my friends. And don't stop.