Sometimes you read a book at the exact right time.

With all of the attacks on the media these days, I am reminded that freedoms are a precious and precarious thing. And given that in the next week we will celebrate Canada Day and The 4th of July, it seems only fitting to think about what makes democracies so great: human rights and personal rights.

So when I spotted BAN THIS BOOK by MG author extraordinaire Alan Gratz, a book I’d been meaning to read for months, I snatched it up.

Alan has the inherent ability to take complex issues and boil them down to a relatable and personal level for children (and adults). See: REFUGEE if you want another brilliant example. Wait: you MUST read REFUGEE!

Anyway, the story is told from the perspective of shy Amy Anne Ollinger, who accidentally becomes a social activist when her favourite book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, is banned from her school library without due process.

And that’s not the only book that’s pulled from the shelves. Authors Judy Blume, Alvin Schwartz, Roald Dahl, Louise Fitzhugh, Mary Downing Hahn, Barbara Park, Day Pilkey, Zilpha Neatly Snyder, and R.L. Stine are also gone.

Amy Anne is outraged, and fights back the best way she knows how: by reading the banned books. And she’s not the only one. In fact, interest in the banned books is so great that it Amy is forced to create Amy Anne’s Banned Books Locker Library, a place that proves as popular as the school library. And with Amy Anne and the other kids on the case, the school board isn’t going to know what hit them!

The issue of censorship is always critically important in a democratic society, and this book does a brilliant and entertaining job of teaching kids to question when someone else wants to do things for their “best interest”. In the end, the book argues that only a child’s parent should be deciding what is and isn’t appropriate for their child to read, something which was always the case in the household I grew up in, though if I am being honest, I don’t believe my parents ever stopped me from reading anything. Though they did sometimes question me!

This book is a must-read and belongs in every library across the world.

Giveaway Winner

Thanks everyone for entering last week’s contest. John Smith is the winner! Congrats John!

Since this weekend is Canada Day and my brother and his family arrive from Alberta on Thursday, this blog is taking next week off. I’ll be back the following week with more news and information, including what happened when I received the Atlantic Indies Booksellers Emerging Author Award on July 7th in Halifax, Nova Scotia!

Happy Canada Day and 4th of July. Let Freedoms Reign!