AN OPEN BOOK LLC SUPPORTS “THE BIG READ” IN WELD, the selection being: BLESS ME, ULTIMA, by Rudolfo Anaya.
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents THE BIG READ in partnership with the Institute of Museum and library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment. Weld county has chosen BLESS ME, ULTIMA by Rudolfo Anaya. Stop by our front black table and find copies to buy, as well as material describing events and discussions, throughout Weld County involving Anaya’s lyrical and luminous BLESS ME, ULTIMA.
In regards to the BANNED BOOKS WEEK, high school students in Norwood, Colorado staged an all-day sit-in to protest the removal of BLESS ME, ULTIMA from a ninth grade English classroom. The book had been removed following parent complaints of profanity and “pagan content” (the book’s title character is an herbal healer). Bob Conder, superintendent of schools, confiscated two dozen copies of the novel and threw them in trash cans, then allowed a group of parents to retrieve the books and destroy them Conder later apologized, admitting he had never read the novel, which appears on first Lady Laura Bush’s “top ten” reading list for all ages.
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