Sherman Alexie, Laurie Halse Anderson Star in ABFFE Videos

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The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression has released several videos of bestselling authors Sherman Alexie and Laurie Halse Anderson discussing how to fight the censorship of young adult books.

Alexie and Anderson were one of the hits of the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute 8 in Kansas City in February. More than 150 booksellers provided an enthusiastic audience for a panel discussion featuring the authors, “Banned Books, Censorship, and YA Literature.” They were joined by ABFFE board member Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Miami’s Books & Books, and moderator Chris Finan, ABFFE president. In addition to the hour-long video, ABFFE filmed short videos of each author discussing censorship. The videos may be viewed on ABFFE’s YouTube page.

ABFFE is a co-founder of the Kids’ Right to Read Project (KRRP), which assists students, parents, teachers and librarians who are fighting book challenges in their communities, and a principal sponsor of Banned Books Week, the only national celebration of the freedom to read. This year’s Banned Books Week is September 22 - 28.