Youre sort of the beatles of banned books. How did you obtain this status, and what are you doing wrong . Uhoh, you know, youre asking the wrong person. Its never the the person who wrote the books is always surprised. You have to ask the people who ban the books. I can go back to 1980, and i can say to you of course, i remember, you know, what was it . It was a shock to me. It was anything to do with sexuality, which, for my characters, was puberty; any language that people found offensive, sometimes lack of moral tone, whatever that is. I think it has to do with hitting the kids i didnt hit them over the head with right and wrong. Gosh, what else . Were you writing a different kind of book than existed in 1968, before you began writing . Well, i never thought about that, you know . I mean, i was a young woman who sat down to write books and to be as honest and truthful as i could be. I remembered very well what it was like to be in sixth grade. And that was when i started. It never o
What this is all about is your right to freedom of speech. What made America Great is an independent, vigorous presence. If a jerk burns a flag, america is not threatened. Political speech is the heart of the First Amendment. Theyre expressing their religious beliefs. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of gods children. Captioning provided by the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center Welcome to speaking freely, a weekly conversation about the First Amendment and free expression. Im ken paulson, executive director of the First Amendment center, and this is a special edition of the program in recognition of banned books week. It features three very special guests. They include judy blume, one of this countrys most popular and most frequently censored authors, Carolivia Herron, whose criticallyacclaimed book, nappy hair, was challenged in a brooklyn school, and cammie mannino, a bookseller who took a stand against censorship. Welcome to all of you. I have to begin with judy.
It was all we dont talk about this. It was shocking and sad. And you had a tenyear period of successful books before the censorship kicked in. Wasnt it the 80s that you began to see 1980 waswas yes, yes. But there had been some. I mean, there was a woman who called me after are you there god . Its me margaret. Was published. She just looked me up in the phone book, and she said, are you the one who wrote that book . And i was really excited, and i said, yes. And she called me a communist, and she hung up. So, you know, there we are. Well, your experiences were markedly different from the experiences surrounding a book called nappy hair. And weve got a copy of it here, because thisthis author was under attack. But more directly, a teacher was under attack. Yes. And one of those wonderful stories that the author runs to the rescue. Could you talk a little bit about nappy hair, what the books about, and how you first heard about, kind of, the outrage directed towards this book . Yes, the
Earthquake weather. Is this earthquake weather . No. Not that i have heard of. No such thing. There is no such thing. We are talking about the weather in a daily or weekly cycle. There is no relationship. I have heard its hot or cold weather or rain. Im not sure which is the myth. How about time of day . Yes. It happens when its least convenient. When it happens people say we were lucky and when they dont. Its terrible timing. Its never a good time for an earthquake. But we are going to have one. How about the ground swallowing people into the ground . Like the earth that collapsed . Its not like the tv shows. The earth does move and it bumps up and you get a ground fracture but its not something that opens up and sucks you up into haddes. Its not going anywhere. We are going to have a lot of damage, but this myth that california is going to the ocean is not real. Southern california is moving north. Its coming up from the south to the north. You would have to invest the million year c