I'll read what I want to!

It amazes me how different my brother and I are I mean let’s check the facts…. We have the same parents; We were raised in the same house; We went to the same schools; We had a lot of the same teachers; Being only 3 years apart we even hung around the same circles of people.

However with all those facts we are still polar opposites; if I were to list all our differences it would take to the end of eternity. Well ok not that fucking long, but still you get the point, the list would be quite impressive in size. With all our differences, the easiest way to separate us is that he is the type of person who has more movies than books, and I am the type that has more books than movies.

This doesn't mean that I don't like movies. Absolutely untrue, I LOVE movies! They are my means of escape, my way of checking out of reality. But books. I'm IN love with books! I admit it…I’m a Bibliophile. There I said it. Books have been my life-long companion. My magic carpet. My professors. They have supported my soul when there was nothing else to lean on. I am an insatiable book slut! I even love the smell of them.

So next week is a holiday of sorts at least for people like me. It combines books, for the nerd inside me, and rebellion, for the my gooey badass center. It's Banned Books Week! In case you, like Marcy didn’t know, Banned Books Week is a national celebration of the freedom to read. It creates awareness to the fact that even in these modern times, books are still actively censored, challenged and banned in the United States with most people not getting a say in which books are banned or allowed.

This year, Banned Books Week will focus on the freedom to read comics and graphic novels! Banned books, check! Comics, check! Graphic Novels, check! How can it get any better?!

I will be spending my week reading books off the ALA banned books list and encouraging others to rebel against the man and do the same! Check with your local libraries and see if they have a book challenge list or a censored/banned list. Support the freedom to read. Support the art form. If you have a comic shop, a book store or even the world's smallest library, make a display, plan an event. Explain to your wee ones why we should have the right to decide for ourselves what we choose to read. Then make sure they understand exactly why that freedom is important and that there are some countries and people who don’t have that freedom!

I hope you all celebrate this literary holiday and enjoy your freedom to stand up! So have fun you rebellious book whores and read on!

-golden @theonlygolden

How creepy is this .... but yeah that's how reading feels!

Helpful links (non endorsed or even approved by us:

http://cbldf.org/librarian-tools/cbldf-banned-books-week-handbook/

http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks