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Canadian Library Month~ Canada

National Reading Group Month~ USA

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read~ ongoing until Oct 4, USA

International Children’s and Youth Literature Festival~ ongoing until Oct 4, Berlin, Germany

3rd Annual Cybils (Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards) Nominations Open~ Oct 1 - 15

National Young Writers’ Festival~ Oct 2-6, Newcastle, Australia

Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards Ceremony~ Oct 3, Boston, MA, USA

21st Yukon International Storytelling Festival~ Oct 3-5, Whitehorse, YK, Canada

2008 Ceremony of Best Books~ Oct 4, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Américas Book Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature Winners Ceremony~ Oct 4, Washington, D.C., USA

Orange County Children’s Book Festival~ Oct 5, Costa Mesa, CA, USA

Children’s Book Week~ Oct 6-12, United Kingdom

13th Annual New England Conference on Multicultural Education~ Oct 8, Hartford, CT, USA

School Library Journal Webcast: Capturing Struggling Readers and Reluctant Readers~ Oct 8

Book It! Cheltenham’s Children’s Literature Festival~ Oct 10-19, Cheltenham, United Kingdom

18th Monterrey International Book Fair~ Oct 11-19, Monterrey, Mexico

YALSA’s Teen Read Week: Books With Bite @ Your Library~ Oct 12-18, USA

“Multicultural Bites” with authors Mitali Perkins, Coe Booth and An Na (part of ReaderGirlz’s celebration of Teen Read Week)~ Oct 13

Ubud Writers and Readers Festival~ Oct 14-19, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Frankfurt Book Fair~ Oct 15-19, Frankfurt, Germany

55th Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards Ceremony~ Oct 17, New York, NY, USA

IBBY Ireland Conference: Green Gables to Globalization: Crossover, Canada and Children’s Books~ Oct 18, Dublin, Ireland

SCBWI Tokyo Writers’ Day~ Oct 18, Tokyo, Japan

Children’s Literature Council Fall Gala~ Oct 18, Santa Ana, CA, USA

Vancouver International Writers Festival~ Oct 21-26, Vancouver, BC, Canada

The Big Picture Party: Celebrate the Power of Picture Books~ Oct 27, London, United Kingdom

Book Week~ Oct 27-Nov 9, Japan

Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Awards Ceremony~ Oct 30, San Marcos, TX, USA

28th Santiago International Book Fair~ Oct 31-Nov 16, Santiago, Chile

During “Banned Books Week” in the US (Sep 28-Oct 4) people across the country celebrate their freedom to read. They display banned books and publicize the absurdity of allowing some to dictate what others are or aren’t allowed to read. Once you ban one book, banning season is open.

Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents is an example of a book that was taken off the shelves for having “inappropriate language and sexual scenes. About a year ago it was banned from Johnston County’s libraries, in North Carolina, as a result of a formal complaint filed by the parents of a 15-year-old high school student. In García Girls, a semi-autobiographical novel for young adults, four sisters from a Dominican family recently arrived in New York face many challenges in adapting to American culture. The book is also the story of a family in search of freedom: they left their native Dominican Republic to escape a dictatorship.

The García Girls’ coming-of-age story was chosen by librarians as one of “21 classics for the 21st century.” It was also one of the four titles selected for “A Latino National Conversation,” a national project sponsored by the Great Books Foundation.

Alvarez, who received a Latina Leader Award in Literature in 2007 from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, remarked on the banning of her book: “This isn’t just an issue of my particular novel’s merit, but a bigger one about the curtailment of civil liberties.” Through her stories Julia Alvarez has quite masterfully created worlds that we all—but for a fearful few—cherish. In an essay titled “I, too, Sing América,” published before the ban on her book, she writes, “It was through the wide open doors of its literature that I truly entered this country, and that I began to dream that maybe I, too, could create worlds where no one would be barred.”

Check out The Kids’ Right to Read Project, a collaboration of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the National Coalition Against Censorship which offers support, education, and advocacy to people facing book challenges or bans, and engages local activists in promoting the freedom to read. We must keep the doors of literature wide open, so that our children can enter whichever one is right for them.

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Library Card Sign-up Month~ USA

National Poetry Week~ ongoing until Sep 7, Australia

Singapore International Storytelling Festival~ ongoing until Sep 9, Singapore

Children Should Be Seen: The Image of the Child in American Picture-Book Art~ ongoing until Sep 14, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Beijing International Book Fair~ Sep 1 - 4, Tinjian, China

National Literacy and Numeracy Week~ Sep 1 - 7, Australia

New Zealand Book Month~ Sep 1 - 30, New Zealand

Christchurch Writers Festival: Getting Between the Covers~ Sep 4 - 7, Christchurch, New Zealand

Shanghai Conference On Children’s Publishing~ Sep 5 - 6, Shanghai, China

Cape Clear Island Storytellling Festival~ Sep 5 - 7, Cape Clear, Ireland

31st IBBY World Congress~ Sep 7 - 10, Copenhagen, Denmark

Hans Christian Anderson Awards Presentation~ Sep 7, Copenhagen, Denmark

International Literacy Day~ Sep 8

UNESCO Literary Prize Awards Presentation~ Sep 8, Paris, France

29th Manila International Book Fair: Words Without Borders~ Sep 12 - 16, Manila, Philippines

Bath Festival of Children’s Literature~ Sep 19 - 28, Bath, United Kingdom

Brisbane Writers Festival~ Sep 17 - 21, Brisbane, Australia

CYA later, Alligator - Children’s and Young Adult Writers And Illustrators Conference~ Sep 20, Brisbane, Australia

6th Annual Houston Latino Book and Family Festival~ Sep 20 - 21, Houston, TX, USA

International Day of Peace~ Sep 21

9th Annual Hog Wild About Reading: A Motorcycle Ride For Literacy~ Sep 21, Port Moody, BC, Canada

Raise-a-Reader Day~ Sep 24, Canada

International Children’s and Youth Literature Festival~ Sep 24 - Oct 4, Berlin, Germany

National Book Festival~ Sep 27, Washington, D.C., USA

Kidlit Bloggers Conference~ Sep 27, Portland, OR, USA

SCBWI Illustrator Day~ Sep 27, San Francisco, CA, USA

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read~ Sep 27 - Oct 4, USA

Word on the Street Book and Magazine Festival ~ Sep 28, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Entry Deadline for the Noma Concours for Picture Book Illustrations~ Sep 30

Sep 29 through Oct 6 marks the 26th anniversary of Banned Books Week, a major event observed across the United States where libraries, schools, booksellers, and community organizations sponsor exhibits and present programs to shed light on the issue of censorship.

This years’ theme is – you guessed – “Aye mateys… celebrate your freedom t’ read!,” and the celebrations also happen at ALA’s InfoArts Island, in the virtual world of ‘Second Life.’ At the virtual island you will meet avatar volunteers that are ready to help you find your way through book events, discussions, and a cool exhibit that mirrors this year’s pirate theme.

I say: Wow!

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Banned Books Week~ Sept 29-Oct 6, USA

Canadian Library Month~ Oct 1-31, Canada

Frankfurt Book Fair~ Oct 10-14, Frankfurt, Germany

Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards Ceremony~ Oct 12, Boston, MA, USA

Teen Read Week~ Oct 14-20, USA

Canadian Children’s Book Centre Awards~ Oct 15, Toronto, ON, Canada

Library Week~ Oct 15-21, New Zealand

Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award~ Oct 17, Texas, USA

International Festival of Authors~ Oct 17-27, Toronto, ON, Canada

Tauranga Arts Festival~ Oct 18-28, Tauranga, New Zealand

Reading Association of the Philippines Conference~ Oct 19-20, Bacolod City, Philippines

Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards Ceremony~ Oct 19, New York City, NY, USA