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[CENSORED]: Banned Books and Forbidden Stories highlights books on the American Library Association (ALA) list of most banned and challenged books. The program opens with the wondrous “Pure Imagination” by Bricusse & Newley, paired with Eric Carle’s beautiful illustrated children’s book, Draw Me a Star. We focus on the development of self, expressed through Gwyneth Walker’s “Now I Become Myself,” which we associate with Kobabe’s Gender Queer. The breathtaking and heartbreaking “Stardust” by B.E. Boykin honors Black lives lost to violence, echoing themes in Thomas’s The Hate U Give. Haugen’s “It is the Silence” takes its text directly from The Diary of Anne Frank. Our own singer/composer Melinda Monroe’s “Megan’s Gone to Fight” resonates with the Vietnam War story of Fallen Angels by Myers. We sing two songs that were themselves banned – Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” and “I’ll Cover You” from Rent, the musical. The performance is designed to entertain, uplift, and provoke thought and action. Bookstores including Left Bank Books and The Novel Neighbor will sponsor tables in the lobby during intermission.