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1. Slap the graphic on your blog.
2. Give link props to the person who gave you the award (keep the hard, best, fast and strong on your side!).
3. Spread the awesome and nominate five (5) other bloggers who you think exemplify what it means to be cool, fun and cutting edge.
4. Let the recipients know they’ve won this honor on their blogs.
5. Last but not least, shoot Gini Koch an email at gini@ginikoch.com and let her know you’re the best of the best of the best, sir! (put “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” in the subject line!) by sharing that you’ve been nominated and telling her which other bloggers you nominated, and she’ll enter you into the “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” Contest. Find out more details and what the loot is at http://www.ginikoch.com/winstuff.htm.

As you know from reading blogs around the blogosphere the week of September 24th to October 1st is Banned Book Week in the US. If you want to know more please check out ALA to find out more about it.

The  Canadian Banned Book Week will be February 26th to March 3rd 2012. I plan on taking part in this one too.

As you can see it doesn’t matter where you live because no matter how much we have freedom of speech there seems to be people out there who think that its okay to have books banned.

To clear up challenged and banned books:

A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group.  A banning is the removal of those materials.  Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.  Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.

Here is the top 10 challenged books for 2010

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
   Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence
3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
   Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit
4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
   Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence
6. Lush, by Natasha Friend
   Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
7. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
   Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
8. Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
   Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, and religious viewpoint
9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
   Reasons:  homosexuality and sexually explicit
10. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
    Reasons: religious viewpoint and violence

I believe in the freedom to read and not have someone tell me what I can and can’t read. So during this very important week I am going to attempt to read a challenged/banned book.

I am still pondering which one I want to read. Do I want to go with a 2010 one or something earlier?

I have to admit when I was looking at all the challenged books I realized that I have quite a few of those books and I plan to make it a point to read more of them.

So I think this week one I am going to attempt to read is:

TTYL (along with the other books in the series, TTFN, L8R, etc.) by Lauren Myracle was the 3rd most challenged book of 2008 for the following reasons:

offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

I have had this in my TBR pile for quite some time so I think this is the perfect book to read. I will be reading this and posting my review and thoughts on this book sometime this week. Perhaps if time permits I will attempt to read another book.

Happy reading everyone
Don’t forget to make it a point to read a banned or challenged book this week.

As you may recall I was recently asked to take part in this great event. This is my first year doing this and I am super excited to have been asked. Thanks so much for asking me.

So no great event can go on without a little help so I was kindly asked if i could share this with you.

We welcome you to donate print books (ARC’s, paperbacks, hard covers, audio
books, etc.), book swag (book marks, book flyers/sell sheets, book plates,
trading cards, etc.) to the Nurture Your BOOKS, 2nd Annual Celebration of
Authors & Reads Worldwide. We’re happy to accept book and book swag
donations until October 15th, 2011 — any donations that are received after
that time will be kept for the 3rd Annual Celebration, to be held next year.
Please mail all donations to the address below:
Nurture Your BOOKS, 2nd Annual
Attn: Bobbie Crawford-McCoy
1-780-594-5599
P.O. Box 5866 Stn. Forces
Cold Lake, Alberta
T9M 2C4
CANADA

To donate eBooks, please fill-in and
submit this form to us .

About the Nurture Your BOOKS, 2nd Annual Celebration of Authors & Reads
Worldwide:
We nurture the symbiotic author/reader relationship and to encourage the
bond with fun, related events, contests and giveaways. We also believe very
strongly in educating minds and promoting literacy on a global scale.
You can join the Celebration and help us promote Global Literacy from
November 1st – December 31st, 2011! There will be numerous Contests, Book
Giveaways & Prizes for Readers, Contests & Prizes for Authors – free
services &  gift certificates and more! There will be hundreds of eBooks &
nearly 100 print books to be won along with the Get It Write Online Forum
Discussions, Twitter contests & prizes, Sponsored Virtual Author Visits and
much, much more!

When: November 1st – December 31st, 2011 – 24/7

Where:
Nuture Your Books Ning -Online/Worldwide

Follow us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/NYBCelebration

Contact Us: info@nurtureyourbooks.com

So mark your calendar and get ready for this extraordinary celebration! 🙂

This sounds like its going to be a fun event I hope you will take part. If you are able to donate prizes please contact Bobbi.

The noise between Patch and Nora is gone. They’ve overcome the secrets riddled in Patch’s dark past…bridged two irreconcilable worlds…faced heart-wrenching tests of betrayal, loyalty, and trust…and all for a love that will transcend the boundary between heaven and earth. Armed with nothing but their absolute faith in each other, Patch and Nora enter a desperate fight to stop a villain who holds the power to shatter everything they’ve worked for—and their love—forever.

I was recently contacted by the awesome Simon & Schuster Canada to share this with you my Canadian readers. I am so honored to have been asked.

This is the third book in the series. The previous books are Hush Hush and Crescendo.

Are you anxiously awaiting the third book? I know I am dying to read it. I have loved all the covers to date but I have to say my favorite so far has been Hush Hush. What about you?

To enter this awesome give away please click here. Oh how I wish I lived in Toronto because I would love to go and see Becca in person but perhaps one day she will come to Montreal!

One of the things I love about S&S Canada is that not only are they having this awesome give away but there is so many other great things they have come up with to go along with the books. If you are a fan of Patch you can actually add your image to a picture on facebook by following this link and if you click here you can have a Patch and you story.

I was going to add the countdown widget but once I did I realized that you can hear the ocean, so I removed it but if you would like to add it to your blog, facebook etc you can click here .

Good luck everyone.

I have an extra copy of Amish Values for Your Family to give away to one lucky reader of mine along with some swag I got from Suzanne Woods Fisher. It includes some postcards and bookmarks.

All you have to do is comment in this post and tell me what you would do if you were given the chance to Amish for a week. Do you think you could handle it?

Please note that this give away is only open to Canada and the US (sorry shipping elsewhere gets to expensive).

Please leave your email address so that I have a way to contact you should you be the winner. The contest is open until September 5 at 11:59pm. You will have 24 hours to reply back to my email with your mailing address failure to do so within that time frame will result in picking another name.

Good luck everyone

Today I am very honored to be the first stop on the Flat Out Love book tour that Ashley from Book Labyrinth organized. In case you haven’t heard about Ashley or her blog before you should go check it out because she is a great Canadian blogger who I have been following for a little while now.

Before I get to my guest post I just wanted to share with you that each tour stop is offering the chance to win an eBook of ‘Flat-Out Love’! There will be 3 winners in total and you can enter on each blog! PLUS, you might want to go back to Book Labyrinth at the end of the tour to participate in an exciting giveaway.

Here is the list of all the tour stops happening this week:
Tuesday, July 5 (today!): Cindy’s Love of Books
Wednesday, July 6: See K Read
Thursday, July 7: The Zealous Reader
Friday, July 8: Blonde…Undercover Blonde
Monday, July 11: The Reading Date
Tuesday, July 12: reutreads
Wednesday, July 13: Tour wrap-up back here at Book Labyrinth winners revealed & new giveaway announced!

Check out what each blogger thought of the book as well as guest posts and interviews with Jessica Park this week and don’t forget to enter the give away.

GIVEAWAY:

Throughout the tour we’re giving away three eBooks of ‘Flat-Out Love’ from Smashwords, so you can read the book in whichever format you’d like. Enter at each tour stop to increase your chances of winning.

The rules:

Open internationally

To be entered:
Comment on this post
Fill out the form
Bonus entries: promote the blog tour (tweet, sidebar link, blog entry, etc.)
Giveaway ends midnight EST on July 12

Form link:
Please Click Here to fill out the form.

So check back today for my guest post with Jessica Park as well as my review for her book.

Good Luck Everyone and I hope you enjoy this.