Virtual Read-Out

As part of Banned Books Week this year, the event organizers are sponsoring a Virtual Read-Out on YouTube. Here’s the types of videos that they are looking for:

You have two video options for the Banned Books Virtual Read-Out:

1) You can submit a video no more than two minutes long of a reading from a banned or challenged book. Here is a list of banned literary classics as well as a list of frequently challenged books throughout the years. You should also check out Mapping Censorship and Robert P. Doyle’s Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read for more ideas. Banned Books: Challenging our Freedom to Read is available for purchase at the ALA Store or can be found at your local public library.

2) A video of an eyewitness account of local challenges can be submitted. This video should be no longer than three minutes long.

Whoopi Goldberg recorded a video for the event in which she reads a Shel Silverstein poem. Have a listen!

I can’t tell how many videos are on the channel right now, but it is easily dozens of them. So find your favorite controversial prose, get your webcam ready, and give it a good reading!

(Here’s my video from last year’s Banned Book Week. I thought I might share that one again.)