This week is Banned Books Week in the United States. Sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA), American Booksellers Association, and a variety of other organizations, the week of events around the country celebrates intellectual freedom and spotlights books that have been targets of attempting bannings. According to the ALA, there were more than 500 "challenges" to specific books...
Literanista is a published poet, a writer, currently works at Hachette Book Group, scouts the ever-changing Web landscape & is working on her debut novel & about a million other things. A native New Yorker born to Puerto Rican & Sicilian parents in Spanish Harlem's El Barrio, Literanista is a graduate of Hunter College of the City Univ. of NY. She holds degrees in Anthropology & Liberal...
It's Banned Books Week (September 26-October 3, 2009). But you probably already knew this. Why do we need a week highlighting the issue of banned books? Because every day all over the US, there are attempts to ban or suppress the sales and circulation of books. Above at right is a map, drawn from cases documented by the American Library Association (ALA) and the Kid's Right to Read Project (a collaboration...
This week is Banned Books Week here in the U.S., an occasion which highlights when books have been officially banned or challenged in schools, libraries, and other places. Several literary classics have received scrutiny over the past year like Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn due to its use of racial slurs . Meanwhile, the Supreme Court may hear the case of Vamos a Cuba - a controversial...
BAN A BOOK TOMORROW . No, that's not right. Stop people from banning books! That's the ticket. It's the American Library Association's annual Banned Books week . The ten most banned books of 2008: And Tango Makes Three , by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group His Dark Materials trilogy , by Philip Pullman...
Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “A book is the most effective weapon against intolerance and ignorance.” He must have meant “…unless intolerance and ignorance prevent you from reading the book in the first place.” This week is Banned Books Week , a time to celebrate literacy, shun scandal, and indulge in the most controversial of the published world. The enthusiastically...
Elizabeth U. sent in a link to an interactive database that shows requests to have books removed from public and school libraries between 2007 and 2009. Here’s a screenshot showing all requests; at the website you can hover over each point and see what the book was, the basis of the challenge, and in many cases the result: I looked through quite a few of them. The most common reasons for challenges...
Let's just pretend this post happened yesterday, when I said it would, okay? I am late in getting started, but I fell down a rabbit hole. Of sorts. Health issues with both kids swallowed my Friday, and yesterday's JASNA trip to Pennsylvania Hospital (to see art by Benjamin West and tour the historical old building with parts that date from 1755 to 1801) basically exhausted me. And now, it's Sunday...
Banned Books Week is September 26th to October 3rd. Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2008 : And Tango Makes Three , by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group His Dark Materials trilogy , by Philip Pullman Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren...
Today is the start of Banned Books Week . The purpose of Banned Books Week, taken from their website, is: Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in...
Jive Talkin’It has often been pointed out that Paleolithic maninvented the comma and the period even though hepossessed a very primitive and rudimentary language.He did draw humorous cartoons---it is said that WalterLantz is one of their descendants, some philologistsbelieve that e. e. cummings may also have branchedoff from them. Rudolfo Anaya has disputed all of thistomfoolery in his epic
Lovely jubbly, innit? Allright, shut up you tarts and have at the latest S&R batch of interesting links. Merci bonjour ! … “Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, SATAANNNNN !” … Almost better than a planetarium … CNN sez STFU … There could be 100 gigs of hard drive space in your toilet … Compare this humble kit to the monster he lives in now … Talk...
by George Polley Listening to stories is something we learn as children. To a writer, listening is vital, because stories are are everywhere, free for the taking when we take the time to listen for and to them. It's amazing to me what I've learned over the years by listening, asking clarifying questions when appropriate, and allowing the person to tell his or her story as I sit and listen. Some years...
New West Network Cities: Idaho Nort (Free subscription) | 07/22/2009
Billings-based writer and teacher Russell Rowland wrote in recently about an anthology he and Lynn Stegner are putting together. The book "will explore what it means to each of these writers to have lived or grown up in the West, as well as how they see the identity of the West changing over time." The University of Texas Press will publish it this spring. Rowland reports the tentative title...
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