Speak.

Please read Laurie Halse Anderson's blog post concerning her book, Speak, and how an influential person in Missouri is calling the book soft pornography, filthy, and immoral, because of how it depicts rape.


I don't believe in banning books. Not for a curse word. Not for a sex scene. Not for portraying truth.


As you may have figured out by now, I normally leave politics, sex and religion out of my blog. Unless you are a personal friend of mine, you don't know those things about me.


But like Myra McEntire , like Tina Lynn , like Frankie Diane (who's hosting a Speak Giveaway) and so many others, I can't stay quiet.



I haven't read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson , but I can't condone banning a book. Especially when its banning is being called for because of a rape scene.

What this pro-banning person (who I won't name in my blog because I don't want his voice to have more power), what he seems to want, is to keep rape from being described-- to keep it hidden-- and that sends the wrong message to both the survivor and the rapist. Survivors have a right to speak, and everyone, even teens, should have access to those voices.


I am going to the bookstore tomorrow and buying Speak. It's hard for me to read books that deal with issues like rape. I have a survivor family member. I choose to read for escapism and maybe I'll never have the courage to read Speak. But that's the point. It's my choice. And I choose to buy this book.


Others have discussed this so much more thoroughly. I encourage you to not only blog and tweet about Speak, but TALK about it! Let people know, outside of your internet circle, that a rape victim's story should never be silenced. Speak!