Banned Books Week 2012!

Banned Books Week is a cooperative effort by librarians, booksellers, teachers, publishers, and other people who care about books and intellectual freedom. It occurs every year during the last week of September, and this year marks the event’s 30^th anniversary. The purpose of Banned Books Week is to raise awareness of the ways in which Americans’ First Amendment rights to freedom of expression are limited by those who seek to remove controversial books from libraries and schools. The week calls attention to both “banned” and “challenged” books (to challenge a book is to make an effort to remove it from an institution; to ban it is to actually do so). Books are usually challenged or banned due to content deemed “inappropriate” or “offensive.” Sexual explicitness and offensive language top the list of reasons for challenges; other reasons include violence, homosexuality, occult themes, drugs, or anti-ethnic sentiments. The American Library Association keeps track of the titles challenged each year. Click here for a list of the top 10 most challenged titles in 2011. Over the decades, challengers have targeted popular series like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Twilight, as well as classics like The Grapes of Wrath, Catcher in the Rye, and To Kill a Mockingbird. This week, stand up for freedom of expression by reading a banned or challenged book!

The books pictured below and many others are available from the BANNED BOOKS DISPLAY at the PSC Library.

Sources

Banned Books Week (2012). About. Retrieved from http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/about

American Library Association (2012). About banned & challenged books. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/aboutbannedbooks

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Nailer and his crew work to scavenge valuable parts from old oil-tankers run aground on the stretch of Gulf Coast known as Bright Sands Beach. The people of Bright Sands Beach know nothing but ship breaking and poverty. They often wonder if they’ll be able to scavenge enough to pay for their next meal and if the next storm will destroy the rough shacks along the beach they call home.

After a particularly big storm destroys the whole beach, Nailer finds a luxury ship run aground, but when he discovers the ship’s owner still alive, Nailer has to decide whether to look out for his own interests or to help this girl, who claims to be the ship’s very rich and powerful owner.

Dickens2012: Celebrate the bicentenary of the author’s birth

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,  we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short , the period was so far like the present period, that some of the noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”  So begins the novel A Tale of Two Cities set in 1775 writtten by Charles Dickens, born February 7, 1812.

Social criticism, politics, poverty and extremes are frequent themes in his novels. The characters he created, such as Scrooge in a Christmas Carol, have become well known.

Dombey and Son

Great Expectations

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

I enjoy reading books and plays that present a new take on classic fiction.  For example, Wicked by Gregory Maguire and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith.  My first exposure to this genre was Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are two minor characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet that, like most characters in the play, come to an untimely end.  The play centers around the playful banter of these two as tragedy unfolds around them.  Though it contains some lines from Hamlet, it is largely an original, and hilarious, piece.

While this piece can be enjoyed without any knowledge of Hamlet, I highly recommended reading or watching a performance of Hamlet first to enhance the experience.

One Last Summer Read

As summer draws to a close, I enjoy reading one last fun, easy novel before the responsibilities of fall begin.  This year I picked up Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.  Before Katniss and Peeta fought in the Hunger Games, before Harry, Ron, and Hermione battled Lord Voldemort, even before Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy went into the wardrobe, Anne Shirley was inadvertently causing mayhem on Prince Edward Island. Green Gables is a little farm in Avonlea, a small community on the island.  Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, two middle-aged siblings, decide to adopt a boy to help Matthew run the farm.  In a fortunate mix-up, the orphanage sends a young girl with bright red hair and a vivid imagination instead of a boy.

With nothing but good intentions, Anne gets into one scrap after another.  Green hair dye, leaky boats, and haunted woods are just a few examples of her many adventures.  A perfect escape for readers of all ages, take some time to enjoy the escapades of this lovable redhead before the summer ends.

The Dark Knight Researches: Batman and the Library

It’s fair to say that when a film grosses over $160 million in one weekend that it has made a dent in the American cultural psyche. On its opening weekend, The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan’s final installment of his Batman trilogy, did exactly that. Capitalizing on themes such as vigilante justice, class warfare, symbolism, and anarchism, TDKR, climbed up the box office charts to become the third highest opening weekend movie to date. So the success of the movie and trilogy, made me take a step back to research, what and who this caped superhero, devoid of powers, traumatized into vigilante justice from witnessing the death of his parents, is. As it turns out, Batman was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in 1939, fresh off the heels of the success of Superman. Kane and Finger (who would later get into a pretty heated fight over the creator rights of Batman), used several aspects of contemporary 1930s culture to mold their hero, but the most notable were Zorro, the legendary savior, hidden to the world by his mask, and Sherlock Holmes, the master sleuth and scientist, who relied on brains, and the power of perception to uncover hidden details overlooked by common detectives. As the hero grew over the years, aspects of his character came more into focus. His alter ego, Bruce Wayne (named after Robert the Bruce), the philanthropic playboy orphan,  used his vast fortune to equip Batman with a Batcave (not yet supplied with a giant dinosaur) and a utility belt, fully equip with the “wonderful toys” that Jack Nicholsan’s Joker, pined for. As the years went on, a number of factors, including the end of World War II and the Congressional settings based around Frederick Wertham’s book Seduction of the Innocent, pushed Batman and many other comic books into a more campy feel, represented in the 1960s television show staring Adam West. The light-hearted Batman would last until the 1980s when Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, rebooted the cowled hero’s universe, making it more gritty and serious. Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) would reflect this new serious and dark take on the franchise, that Nolan would then capitalize on.

If you would like to learn more about the Caped Crusader, read his exploits, or watch his movies, then check out some of these articles and books featuring the Dark Knight.

Check This Book Out! America Walks Into A Bar: A Spirited History by Christine Sismondo

“America walks into a bar” sounds like the perfect opening line of a joke, and is one of the titles featured on the NEW BOOKS DISPLAY at the Prairie State College library this month. In America Walks Into A Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops, Christine Sismondo presents the local watering hole as a pivotal character in American History. The story begins in colonial taverns, where drinking leads to serious, and later impassioned, discussions that plant the seeds of revolution. Early elections are largely influenced by taverns, as candidates prime voters with a beverage called bumbo. The story continues through prohibition, the rise of organized crime, and ends with a look at modern day legislation.

“The story of the American bar is a love-hate story,” (Sismondo 277). Bars, taverns, and speakeasies have been the backdrop for famous speeches, assassination plots, and major crime enterprises. Discover how important, and controversial, the bar has been to the development of our nation with this entertaining, informative novel.

America Walks Into A Bar : A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops and the other books shown below can be found on the NEW BOOKS DISPLAY at the Prairie State College library.

Soldiers of Fortune: Books about War and the Warriors that Fight Them

On the fourth day of July, all across the United States, fireworks are lit off to commemorate the victory of our fore fathers over Britain and birth of America. But that freedom came at a price and that price was paid for by the soldiers who then and now continue to fight for our way of life. So we thought what better month to display the stories of the men and women who held the trenches when the World was fighting itself, or braved to musket fire that threatened to tear America in two. Men and women who stood in the hot desert sand of the Middle East or who braved the jungles of Asia all in the name of the United States of America. So come into the Library this month and check out some of these tales of war and the warriors that have to live through them.

Mark Twain: an american classic

The humorous adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and many more characters in short stories and novels created by Mark Twain (1835-1910) are timeless classics.

Mark Twain’s Best

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Autobiography of Mark Twain

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

In my last post, I described how I used the novels of Khaled Hosseini to “travel” to Afghanistan. Today I write about a different sort of travel experience through literature—an exploration of a culture within the United States unfamiliar to many. Sherman Alexie, who grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington state, brings the contemporary American Indian experience to life in an eye-opening and poignant way. His novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is autobiographical. The story of his protagonist, Arnold Spirit, Jr., closely parallels the life of the author. Born with physical deformities which make him the object of ridicule by his peers, yet keenly intelligent and unsatisfied with the limitations of reservation life, Arnold makes the radical decision to leave the reservation school and attend Reardan High School in a white community twenty-two miles away. Doing so, he faces challenges from all sides. At Reardan, he encounters racist taunts and tries to hide his poverty. On the reservation, he is ostracized by his community for betraying his Indian heritage. All the time he contends with the social problems in the Indian community—poverty, alcoholism, violence, the untimely deaths of loved ones, hopelessness, and feelings of inferiority. Over the course of this novel, through the support of his family, his new and old friendships, his brains, and his newly discovered basketball talent, Arnold finds his way, grows, and thrives. While the subject matter of this novel is serious, the first-person narrator entertains the reader with his humorous tone and teenage perspective. As Arnold is a budding cartoonist, the book is also illustrated with “his drawings” (done by artist Ellen Forney).  But do not dismiss this book for its pictures or its teenage point of view—Alexie writes for all ages, and he has received some of the most prestigious awards in literature. The book reads quickly, but anyone who spends even a short time with Arnold grows to care about him and cheer for him as he reaches for his dreams.