Perks RePlay | Natalie McCall | You Can't Read This | 10-6-20

What books do you think about when you hear the term Banned Books; do you envision classics like Huck Finn or The Catcher in the Rye? Or books that you wanted to sneak to read when you were a kid because it had swearing, magic, or sexual content? In fact a book series that has been arguably one of the most beloved in modern history, the Harry Potter series, is still high on the list of Banned Books so many years after it was first published.

Our episode today was recorded during Banned Books Week, a weeklong annual event sponsored by the American Library Association to celebrate the freedom to read and bring awareness to both current and past attempts to censor books in libraries and schools.

We believe this topic is one that you can think about any time of the year, not just for one designated week so we wanted to explore the topic with our guest, Natalie McCall, a librarian and head of youth services at the Mill Valley Public Library in the Bay area of California. She is also the host of a podcast called Eight Books That Made Me where she has conversations with Young Adult authors about 5 books that influenced them growing up and 3 books they encourage readers to check out now.

Natalie discusses what it meant to be a hi-lo reader when she was a child, why she thinks one of the most common types of censorship for libraries is based on what books they don’t choose to purchase, and about the role of libraries and the freedom to read as one of the foundations of democracy.

Books Mentioned In This Episode:

1- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
2- The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett
3- Babysitter's Club series by Ann M. Martin
4- Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal
5- Fear Street series by R. L. Stine
6- Goosebumps series by R. L. Stine
7- The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac
8- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
9- The Winter Pony by Iain Lawrence
10- A Love Story of Two Boys by Brian Roberson
11- Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
12- Forever by Judy Blume
13- The Things They Carried by Tim O' Brien
14- All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 
15- Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
16- Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones
17- Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds 
18- The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery 
19- Quiet by Susan Cain
20- Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett
21- Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett
22- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
23- The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reid
24- The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
25- Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
26- Caminar by Skila Brown
27- Under the Mesquite by Guadelupe Garcia McCall
28- Inside Out and Back Again by Thanha Lai
29- Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

Podcast mentioned:
8 Books That Made Me

TV shows mentioned:
It's Ok to Not Be Ok (Korean Drama on Netflix)
Dark (German Drama on Netflix)