2011 Banned Books Week- Day 7- TGIF and First Lines

TGIF at Greads Question of the week: Banned Books: How do you feel about the censorship of the freedom to read? Do you think the education system needs to be more strict on what children are exposed to in books?

I've blogged every day this week on Banned Books Week. Please go back and read my posts to learn what I think about censorship. When my children were young I helped them select age-appropriate materials to read and view but if they wanted to read something that wasn't, I would read that book with them so that we could talk about it together. Recently my college-age daughter told me that she appreciated the way that open-minded way we raised her, capable of thinking for herself. High praise indeed. As a librarian I have fairly strong feelings about the way that banning books violates 1st Amendment rights and the Students Rights to Read. Click on the links to see my other posts on Banned Books Week.
Day 1- Banned Books Giveaway (closes Oct. 1)
Day 1- Banned Books reinstated...sort of
Day 2- Sunday Salon, BBW edition
Day 3- Mindless Banning
Day 4- In the GKHS Library
Day 5- Review: Athletic Shorts (a banned book)
Day 6- Maya Angelou Poem: Those Who Ban Books

First Line Friday at A Few More Pages: In honor of Banned Books Week I have highlighted the first line of several books that have been banned or challenged in the past. I never realized until I started hunting for books with good first lines, how many bad first lines there are in books.  Ha!  Hope you like my selection of opening lines from banned books. 

1984 by George Orwell: "It was a bright day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury:  "It was a pleasure to burn."

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon: "It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was laying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shear's house."

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan: "When I was little, my dad used to tell me, 'Will, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose.' This seemed a reasonably astute observation to me when I was eight, but it turns out to be incorrect on a few levels."

Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan: "It was a wild, windy, southwestern spring when the idea of killing Mr. Griffin occurred to them."

Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going: "I'm a sweating fat kid standing on the edge of the subway platform staring at the tracks."

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."