Thursday, October 26, 2023
Cat Thursday Halloween 2023 - Vampires and such!
Thursday, October 19, 2023
Cat Thursday Halloween 2023 - A Halloween Miscellany
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Classics Club Spin #35
And the spin landed on #13...Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
CC Spin #35 - Maybe I'll finish one spin a year....
- Mastering Witchcraft - Paul Huson
- Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol
- Where Angels Fear to Tread - E.M. Forster
- Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
- The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
- Murder in the Cathedral - T.S. Eliot
- As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
- Vampires and Vampirism - Montague Summers
- Taras Bulba - Nikolai Gogol
- The Centaur - Algernon Blackwood
- The Collector - John Fowles
- The Devils of Loudon - Aldous Huxley
- The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
- Grendel - John Gardner
- The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
- The Werewolf - Montague Summers
- The Human Chord - Algernon Blackwood
- In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires - Raymond T. McNally, Radu R. Florescu
- The Witch of Ravensworth - George Brewer
- The House on the Borderland - William Hope Hodgson
Thursday, October 12, 2023
Cat Thursday Halloween 2023 - Yeah, we don't like costumes
Week Two!
Saturday, October 7, 2023
Banned Books Week 2023 - Toni Morrison's Beloved
In Florida’s Polk County, Nobel Literature Prize-winner Toni Morrison’s novels The Bluest Eye and Morrison’s Beloved were among 16 books “quarantined”—taken off shelves in public school libraries “so a thorough, thoughtful review of their content can take place,” a spokesperson explained to The Ledger—on Jan. 25 after a complaint. Less than a week earlier, a school board in Wentzville, Missouri had voted 4-3 to remove The Bluest Eye from the district’s high school libraries at a board meeting on Jan. 20. The decisions are just two examples of a wave of book bans and challenges to school libraries’ content currently occurring across the U.S.
In Oct. 2021, a Virginia mom who tried to get Beloved banned from her son’s high school in 2013 was featured in an ad for then-gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, who made education a core part of his platform. He won the governorship the next month. (In 2016 and 2017, then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe—Youngkin’s opponent in the 2021 election—had vetoed so-called “Beloved bills,” efforts to enable parents to opt their children out from reading sexually-explicit novels at schools.)
Scholars say one of the reasons Morrison’s books in particular are controversial is because they address, unabashedly, nearly all of the above, centering on dark moments in American history that can be uncomfortable for some people to talk about. Beloved, for example, is inspired by the true story of an enslaved woman, Margaret Garner, who killed her daughter in 1856 to spare her from slavery.
“What she tried to do is convey the trauma of the legacy of slavery to her readers. That is a violent legacy,” says Emily Knox, author of Book Banning in 21st-Century America, of Morrison’s body of work. “Her books do not sugarcoat or use euphemisms. And that is actually what people have trouble with.”
Source: Why Toni Morrison's Books Are So Often the Target of Book Bans - TIME Magazine
Prior to 2020, the vast majority of challenges to library books and resources were brought by a single parent who sought to remove or restrict access to a book their child was reading. However, in 2022, 90% of reported book challenges were demands to censor multiple titles - and of those demands to censor library books, 40% sought to remove or restrict more than 100 books all at once.
These numbers and the list of the Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022 are evidence of a growing, well-organized, conservative political movement, the goals of which include removing books about race, history, gender identity, sexuality, and reproductive health from America's public and school libraries that do not meet their approval. Using social media and other channels, these groups distribute book lists to their local chapters and individual adherents, who then utilize the lists to initiate a mass challenge that can empty the shelves of a library.
New data shows record surge of challenges in public libraries
CHICAGO — The American Library Association (ALA) has released new preliminary data documenting the continued rise in attempts to censor books and materials in public, school and academic libraries during the first eight months in 2023.
Between January 1 and August 31, 2023, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) reported 695 attempts to censor library materials and services and documented challenges to 1,915 unique titles.* The number of unique titles challenged has increased by 20 percent from the same reporting period in 2022, the year in which the highest number of book challenges occurred since ALA began compiling this data more than 20 years ago. Most of the challenges were to books written by or about a person of color or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Challenges to books in public libraries accounted for 49 percent of those OIF documented, compared to 16 percent during the same reporting period in 2022. The largest contributor to the rise in both the number of censorship attempts and the increase in titles challenged continues to be a single challenge by a person or group demanding the removal or restriction of multiple titles.
- As in 2022, 9 in 10 of the overall number of books challenged were part of an attempt to censor multiple titles.
- Cases documenting a challenge to 100 or more books were reported in 11 states, compared to six during the same reporting period in 2022 and zero in 2021.
“These attacks on our freedom to read should trouble every person who values liberty and our constitutional rights,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “To allow a group of people or any individual, no matter how powerful or loud, to become the decision-maker about what books we can read or whether libraries exist, is to place all of our rights and liberties in jeopardy.”
Friday, October 6, 2023
Banned Books Week 2023 - Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits
House of the Spirits weaves intricate themes of family systems, gender roles, political extremism, and social inequality under the guise of absurdity. However, the intentional subversion and obscurity of historical events, reminiscent of many other magical realism novels, creates a certain discomfort and distrust that has likely set the stage for several challenges and contentions in schools.
Though the novel has never been officially banned, it has faced several challenges in schools since the time of its publication in 1982, often being characterized as “pornagraphic”, “immoral” and “defaming the Catholic faith”. The most recent, and perhaps most significant, challenge came about in 2013 when several parents at a North Carolina high school raised formal complaints to the school board regarding the book being a part of the English curriculum. The book was retained after three appeals and a defense letter from Isabel Allende herself. In the letter, the author writes:
“I find myself in the unusual and awkward position of having to “defend” my novel The House of the Spirits that risks being banned from a high school in Boone, North Carolina. Banning of books is a common practice in police states, like Cuba or North Korea, and by religious fundamentalist groups like the Taliban, but I did not expect it in our democracy…”Isabelle Allende
The novel has won several awards worldwide, including Best Novel of the Year (Chile, 1983), Author of the Year and Book of the Year (Germany, 1984), Grand Prix D’Evasion (France, 1984), Best Novel (Mexico, 1985), Point de Mire (Belgium, 1985), XV Premio Internazionale I Migliori Dell”Anno (Italy, 1987), Best Foreign Novel (Portugal, 1987), Books to Remember Award, American Library Association (USA, 1996), and The New York Public Library (2000).
Though the novel has never been officially banned, it has faced several challenges in schools since the time of its publication in 1982, often being characterized as “pornagraphic”, “immoral” and “defaming the Catholic faith”. The most recent, and perhaps most significant, challenge came about in 2013 when several parents at a North Carolina high school raised formal complaints to the school board regarding the book being a part of the English curriculum. The book was retained after three appeals and a defense letter from Isabel Allende herself. In the letter, the author writes:
“I find myself in the unusual and awkward position of having to “defend” my novel The House of the Spirits that risks being banned from a high school in Boone, North Carolina. Banning of books is a common practice in police states, like Cuba or North Korea, and by religious fundamentalist groups like the Taliban, but I did not expect it in our democracy…”Isabelle Allende
The novel has won several awards worldwide, including Best Novel of the Year (Chile, 1983), Author of the Year and Book of the Year (Germany, 1984), Grand Prix D’Evasion (France, 1984), Best Novel (Mexico, 1985), Point de Mire (Belgium, 1985), XV Premio Internazionale I Migliori Dell”Anno (Italy, 1987), Best Foreign Novel (Portugal, 1987), Books to Remember Award, American Library Association (USA, 1996), and The New York Public Library (2000).
Source: The Banned Books Project @Carnegie Mellon University
Community Divided Over The House of the Spirits as Final Banning Decision Draws Near
February 13, 2014
Back in November, CBLDF co-signed a letter defending Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits after an outraged parent filed complains against the book being taught in her son’s honors English class. After months of review, the Watauga county school board held a meeting Monday evening to debate the future of the book in the North Carolina high school.
The controversy began when Chastity Lesesne objected to the book being part of the curriculum based on what she called “pornographic” depictions of sexual situations. The House of the Spirits follows Allende and her family through the Chilean Revolution of the 1970s and does depict sex, violence, and rape as part of the story, but the book is used extensively in high school classrooms around the country. It was reviewed and recommended for the grade level by the North Carolina Department of Instruction, and any student who preferred not to read the material was allowed to complete an alternate assignment. In spite of a scant number of students ever objecting to the material, Lesesne chose to raise formal complaints and, after two votes to retain the book (both of which were unanimous), continued to fight back through the appeals process. Monday’s hearing was the result of her final appeal, which was made in December.
The Winston-Salem Journal provided an overview of the meeting, which was open to the public and included a prepared statement by Franklin Graham, son of Reverend Billy Graham, who obviously was unaware that alternate reading selections were available.
“As a parent and grandparent, I’m very concerned about what our children are asked to read and, in some cases, forced to read,” he said.
Fortunately, supporters of Mary Kent Whitaker, the teacher involved in the controversy, also spoke on behalf of keeping the book in the curriculum.
“Obviously I have a professional stake in books being banned, but I was really surprised,” said Fischer, an associate professor of English at Appalachian State University whose son was in Whitaker’s class last year. “I have taught in Mary Kent Whitaker’s class and she seems to be to be fair and intellectually honest with the kids. This is for an honors class, and that’s supposed to prepare you to think on your own and for college.”
Parents weren’t the only ones to send a message of support for free speech — the afternoon before the hearing, students as well as parents showed up in Whitaker’s classroom to deliver gifts and messages of encouragement. Whitaker commented:
“Students were in my room talking about the book and the idea of banning books from the curriculum. It was a mature and sophisticated and compassionate discussion.”
Source: CBLDF
Outcome of the above case:
Challenged in the Watauga County (NC) High School curriculum because of the book’s graphic nature. After a five-month process, the book was fully retained at a third and final appeal hearing.Source: Marshall Libraries @Marshall University
A publicly documented case of a censorship attempt...
In July 2023, the Des Moines Register obtained a list of 374 books that the district had flagged for removal without knowing if the district even owned the books. The justification for the list was to comply with a state law (SF 496) that went into effect in July and set to begin imposing penalties in January 2024. The law is focused on defining what books are deemed age-appropriate in Iowa schools with a focus on topics addressing sex, sex education, sexual orientation and gender identity. A school district spokesperson stated the district was “to provide guidance to K-12 teachers about books that might violate the state law.” In response to protests, the list was revised to 65 books. Among the books removed from school libraries were The Kite Runner, The Handmaid's Tale, Brave New World, Beloved, The Color Purple, Native Son, Gender Queer, All Boys Aren't Blue, and The Hate U Give.
Thursday, October 5, 2023
Cat Thursday Halloween 2023 - Creepy and Funny
Happy October! It's time for all the creepy and funny cats. 🎃
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
Banned Books Week 2023 - Huxley's Brave New World
The book was challenged as required reading in the Corona-Norco, Calif., Unified School District in 1993 because it "centered around negative activity". The challengers cited the school's health curriculum, which taught sexual abstinence, and said the characters of "Brave New World" went against those teachings. A challenge in Mercedes, Texas, on the basis of adult content, resulted in the school board's ruling that school principals must offer alternate reading selections if parents challenge a book on a reading list.
Source: Banned Books Week: Banned BOOKS in the Library - Albright College
Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel, set in London in the year 2540 (632 A.F. in the book), has also become one of the most frequently censored books in literary history. It was #52 of the 100 most banned books of 1990-2001 and one of the 10 most frequently challenged books of 2010 according to the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom for themes of sexuality, drugs, and suicide. Incidentally, it was the only classic on the list for that year.
The school board in Baxley, Georgia, banned “Brave New World,” along with John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”, and Richard Wright’s “Native Son” because a local church minister objected to the contexts, despite many of the community’s parents and teachers approving of the book.
Other reasons for banning it throughout the years in the United States include insensitivity and racism.
“Brave New World” has been challenged in Glen Burnie, Maryland for too much sexual content; while on the opposite coast it found itself in trouble in Seattle after a parent complained that the book has a “high volume of racially offensive, derogatory language, and misinformation on Native Americans. In addition to the inaccurate imagery, and stereotype views, the text lacks literary value which is relevant to today’s contemporary multicultural society.”
Perhaps Huxley foreshadowed the onslaught of censorship attempts his novel would endure in one of the most memorable dialogues of “Brave New World,” which is a fitting discussion point for any debate on censorship and book banning. Remembering Shakespeare, the character, John, says, “You got rid of them. Yes, that’s just like you- getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether ’tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them… But you don’t do either.”
John also claims the “right to be unhappy,” and Mustapha says it’s also “the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what might happen tomorrow.”
The common thinking is that utopia is some far-off goal of the future, a state of being far removed from that of the present day; but utopia and dystopia are merely two sides of the same coin.
Part of what makes this book so controversial is the very thing that makes it so timeless- we want to believe that technology has the power to cure all, but Huxley shows the dangers all too well.
By removing all of the world’s sorrows and ills, humanity also rids itself of the true pleasures in life. There’s no real passion in a fixed and engineered society; no creativity; and no individuality. To know the pleasure, you must first know the pain. That’s the difference between having a life and living a life.
Source: Banned Books Awareness: “Brave New World” - Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge
A publicly documented case of a censorship attempt...
Clinton, Tennessee: Clinton Public Library
In February 2023, the library board voted against a proposal to create a special section of their library to house books related to gender identity and sexual orientation. The conversation was spurred by challenges to Grandad’s Camper, It Feels Good to be Yourself, and Families like Mine from members of a group that advocates for the censorship of library material with LGBTQIA+ representation. While the books were retained where they were originally shelved, members of the group went on to challenge numerous additional titles with LGBTQIA+ representation, including literary memoirs and sex education titles. The group has recently begun calling for the library director’s resignation and threatening community members who have publicly defended access to these resources. In August, the mayor of Anderson County and four county commissioners asked the sheriff to investigate whether 17 books available at public libraries, including Clinton Public Library, violate Tennessee’s criminal obscenity laws. Prosecutors have not brought charges.
In February 2023, the library board voted against a proposal to create a special section of their library to house books related to gender identity and sexual orientation. The conversation was spurred by challenges to Grandad’s Camper, It Feels Good to be Yourself, and Families like Mine from members of a group that advocates for the censorship of library material with LGBTQIA+ representation. While the books were retained where they were originally shelved, members of the group went on to challenge numerous additional titles with LGBTQIA+ representation, including literary memoirs and sex education titles. The group has recently begun calling for the library director’s resignation and threatening community members who have publicly defended access to these resources. In August, the mayor of Anderson County and four county commissioners asked the sheriff to investigate whether 17 books available at public libraries, including Clinton Public Library, violate Tennessee’s criminal obscenity laws. Prosecutors have not brought charges.
Tuesday, October 3, 2023
Banned Books Week 2023 - Elie Wiesel's Night
Today the focus is on why Elie Wiesel's Night has been challenged or banned. First, some information...
One of the key consequences of book banning is erasure. When we decide that some things are too uncomfortable to talk about, we risk losing the memory of how things happen. We lose context, we lose people, we lose the truth.
That seems to be the case according to a recent study by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The New York Times summarizes, “Thirty-one percent of Americans, and 41 percent of millennials, believe that two million or fewer Jews were killed in the Holocaust; the actual number is around six million. Forty-one percent of Americans, and 66 percent of millennials, cannot say what Auschwitz was. And 52 percent of Americans wrongly think Hitler came to power through force.”
That seems to be the case according to a recent study by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The New York Times summarizes, “Thirty-one percent of Americans, and 41 percent of millennials, believe that two million or fewer Jews were killed in the Holocaust; the actual number is around six million. Forty-one percent of Americans, and 66 percent of millennials, cannot say what Auschwitz was. And 52 percent of Americans wrongly think Hitler came to power through force.”
Read that second paragraph again. Let it sink in. That is a very high percentage of people who know nothing, but let's ban all the books about it so we can get that up to 100 percent. I knew about the Holocaust when I was as young as elementary school age. My parents did not shield me from it because they understood the importance of knowing and acknowledging what happened.
The other thing to point out in the second paragraph above "52 percent of Americans wrongly think Hitler came to power through force." Night starts out when Elie and his family are still living their daily lives, but we start to see gradual changes in their lives, until finally, the family is separated and Elie and his father are on their way to Auschwitz. Even the Jewish people, their neighbors and friends, ignored the warning signs because, really, what did they have to compare it with. In their minds, they could not fathom it, even when Moche the Beadle warned them.
Only through history, and learning these subjects, instead of brushing them under the rug, can we understand how easily Hitler accomplished what he set out to accomplish. We cannot turn a blind eye to things going on in the world just because they are difficult to face, or because we think it could never happen. It happened. It could happen again.
Elie Wiesel said: "We may use words to break the prison." In this video, he explains that he wrote his memoir Night out of a duty to bear witness to his experiences in the Holocaust.
We must keep reading books with subjects of injustice. We must keep reading, and spreading the word about how and why books are challenged or banned.
A publicly documented case of a censorship attempt...
Front Royal, Virginia: Samuels Public Library
A local pressure group called “Clean Up Samuels” held two book-banning BBQ events ("there will be beer and babysitting") to fill out request for reconsideration forms of materials held at the library. Their efforts focused on children's and young adult materials with representation of the lived experiences of those who are LGBTQIA+. Over 500 forms were completed for nearly 150 unique titles. At county board of supervisor meetings, group members called for the elimination of the library's funding over the availability of And Tango Makes Three, Pride Colors, Prince and Knight, I Love You Because I Love You, Plenty of Hugs, and other LGBTQIA+ titles. In June, the county board of supervisors voted to withhold 75 percent of the budget until the library takes action "to protect our children from sexually explicit material and ensure parents have control over their children's reading choices." The library director resigned in August.
Monday, October 2, 2023
Banned Books Week October 1 - 7 - Let Freedom Read
Now more than ever is the time we really need to stand up and fight for the books being so needlessly ripped from the hands of readers.
According to the ALA...
"2023 Preliminary Data Shows Record Surge of Challenges in Public Libraries
Between January 1 and August 31, 2023, OIF reported 695 attempts to censor library materials and services and documented challenges to 1,915 unique titles - a 20% increase from the same reporting period in 2022, which saw the highest number of book challenges since ALA began compiling the data more than 20 years ago. The vast majority of challenges were to books written by or about a person of color or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community."
The top most challenged books in 2022...
Number of challenges: 151
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
2. All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson
Number of challenges: 86
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
Number of challenges: 86
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
3. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Number of challenges: 73
Challenged for: depiction of sexual abuse, EDI content, claimed to be sexually explicit
Number of challenges: 73
Challenged for: depiction of sexual abuse, EDI content, claimed to be sexually explicit
4. Flamer by Mike Curato
Number of challenges: 62
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
5. (tie) Looking for Alaska by John Green
Number of challenges: 55
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
5. (tie) The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Number of challenges: 55
Challenged for: depiction of sexual abuse, LGBTQIA+ content, drug use, profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit
7. Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison
Number of challenges: 54
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Number of challenges: 52
Challenged for: profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit
9. Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez
Number of challenges: 50
Challenged for: depictions of abuse, claimed to be sexually explicit
10. (tie) A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit
10. (tie) Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for: drug use, claimed to be sexually explicit
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for: profanity, claimed to be sexually explicit
10. (tie) This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson
Number of challenges: 48
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, providing sexual education, claimed to be sexually explicit
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Free online events going on this week - highlights here.
More information on further events here.
“This is a dangerous time for readers and the public servants who provide access to reading materials. Readers, particularly students, are losing access to critical information, and librarians and teachers are under attack for doing their jobs.”
- Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom