Indiana, here I come!  Zionsville, Indiana to be exact!

On November 7th I'll be visiting teens and college students at the Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Public Library.  And get this:  If you hurry and preregister, you get a free copy of The Adoration of Jenna Fox.  But you must preregister. Space and books are limited.  Here's the registration form and instructions.  I'm excited.  I've been to the states on either side of it, but I've never been to Indiana before!  If you know a teen or college student in the Zionsville area, please pass along the information.  I would love to meet them! Patricia VanArsdale, the Librarian Goddess who has arranged the visit, says teachers and media specialists are also welcome. I will also be giving away an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of Fox Forever!

In other authory visit news, I will be in Las Vegas November 17-20 for the ALAN conference!  I love this conference because it's all about young adult literature and it's loaded with people who love YA books!  My schedule is as follows:
Sunday Nov 18th - 9-10 am signing at the Macmillan Children's Booth #511
Monday - free day to take in the sessions and ???
Tuesday  Nov 20th - 2:40-3:40 Science Fiction Breakout Session - More info to come on topic and fellow panelists!

Oh! I'll also be making a virtual author visit via Skype on November 3rd for the Sam Houston State University's Children's Book Festival!  It will be in the morning, 8:30ish, but I will confirm the time soon. I'll be chatting and sharing with teachers, librarians, and library science students--virtually! So if you'll be at the festival, stop in and say hello!

The ARCs are here! Well, I got two at least, but I know there are more out there somewhere, and Fox Forever, the final book in The Jenna Fox Chronicles trilogy is being read by someone.  Who?  I don't know! 

This is always a nail-biting but wonderful stage in the publication of a book, and every time feels like the first time.  It's no longer just my story.  Others are reading it and bringing their own life experience to the words and characters and it's becoming something different.  Edmund Wilson, a literary critic and editor, said it best: "No two people ever read the same book."  Which is one of the things that makes a book so exciting.  It has an infinite number of incarnations, depending on who reads it, and yet there is always that shared experience too.

It's exhilarating when the story you worked on for so many months and sometimes years, is finally starting to look like the real thing--a book!  Of course an ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) is not the final product.  It's a sneak peek.  It's produced before the final final edits are complete, so there are mistakes and sometimes there are small changes in the story too. Very often even the cover is not the final cover, as is the case with Fox Forever. There will be some changes to that too.  (But isn't it gorgeous already?  I love it!)

I haven't really said too much to anyone what this final book is about, but the short synopsis is up on most bookselling sites.  But for me in this final book, the world Matthew Fox spun into existence came full circle and it explored what it means to be human from multiple perspectives and from start to finish. 

I must admit, it was a very satisfying but bittersweet moment as I typed the last words.  I've spent a lot of time with Locke and Jenna and so many of the other characters too.  It was hard to say goodbye.

Sneak peaks aside, this last book of the trilogy will be out on March 19--only a few months away!

What do the following books have in common?

Little Red Riding Hood by Brothers Grimm
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
My Brother Sam is Dead by James and Christopher Collier
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Nancy Drew (the series) by Carolyn Keene
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Bible

So just what could this very diverse list of books possibly have in common?

1) I have read them all, either as a child, student, or adult.
2) I have loved them all (and hated a few)
3) I am grateful that I had the opportunity to read them all--whether I loved OR hated them.
4) And finally, ALL of these books at one time have been challenged or banned.

What this means, is that if the person who challenged these books had their way, I might never have had the opportunity to read these books. My right to exercise my choice would have been taken away. And oh my, I have some very particular feelings about choice.

On a very gut level reaction, I am insulted when someone insists on making a choice for me. What they are in essence saying is: I am smarter than you. I am a better parent than you. I am a better citizen than you. I am better informed than you. I am better, period.

Yes, they are certainly better to make decisions about their own life, but please, not about mine. I may be stupid, biased, swayed, uninformed, have bad breath or am just plain ignorant, but choice is something I value. More than value. It defines everything about me, who I am in this world, and what I might be in the next one. Do not take away my choice.

And to illustrate my point I will cite a story, a story from historically, one of the most banned and challenged books of all time: The Bible. In the book of Genesis God created a man and woman in his image. That image included free will. Choice. He could have made a man and woman in the image of robots–always doing everything as they were told. Things might have gone much easier for the world if he had, right? But he didn’t. IF, in all his wisdom, he gave man and woman the right to choose, and not only that but he gave them this right in the first pages of the most widely read book of all time, who am I to take that right away?

By now you are probably well aware that this is Banned Books Week. The problem with banning books is that there isn’t a book on earth that isn’t disliked by someone. If we got rid of every book that someone hated, the books that we love would be among them and they would be gone too. I can’t imagine a world without books. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Reading Little Red Riding Hood as a child certainly impacted me (read my bio) but I survived it and am none the worse for wear. Ban Little Red Riding Hood? Preposterous!

Without a doubt, we've all read a book that's been banned somewhere.  Maybe you're reading one right now.  What's your favorite banned book?