The Occupy Library, Literary Cities, and Books for Kids

Last week, more than 5,000 books were confiscated during an NYPD raid of the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park.

The Occupy Wall Street librarians tweeted throughout the night: “NYPD destroying American cultural history, they’re destroying the documents, the books, the artwork of an event in our nation’s history … Right now, the NYPD are throwing over 5,000 books from our library into a dumpster. Will they burn them?”

Jami Attenberg wrote for Salon about how she helped rescue the books:

One day you think you know a place, that you live in the literary capital of the world, that all around you there are people who believe in books and art and culture and the importance of the freedom of speech. And then the next day you live in a place where 5,000 books can be seized without warning, many of them to be destroyed, and nothing can be done about it.

The American Library Association released a statement in response to the destruction of the “People's Library”:

The dissolution of a library is unacceptable. Libraries serve as the cornerstone of our democracy and must be safeguarded. An informed public constitutes the very foundation of a democracy, and libraries ensure that everyone has free access to information.

Want to live in a city with bookworms like you? Then you might want to move to one of the top 10 literary cities compiled by National Geographic.

Does it seem like there's been a recent surge in YA books-turned-movies? The Huffington Post lists their top 15 favorites.

No matter how devoted parents are to their e-readers, they choose print books to read to their children, reported the New York Times. “It’s intimacy, the intimacy of reading and touching the world. It’s the wonderment of her reaching for a page with me,” parent Leslie Van Every told the Times.