One more week down, again a very busy week in work but thankfully with far less worries. Life My last couple of months were very busy with work, since I started a new project. While there's more coming up over the next few weeks, I am also hoping that maybe I have passed the point where it stops being a part of every waking moment and allow me to be able to read without interrupting thoughts fluttering around in my head. We'll see. We got enough snow yesterday for the kids to be able to play and make a snow man. All the snow melted by noon but we are getting more overnight so hopefully there's more snow fun to be had. Reading After not being able to stay with a book long enough to be pulled into it for the past couple of weeks, I was desperately looking for a book that was both a fast read and also one that I would love. That was a high bar to meet even under the best of circumstances, but luckily, yesterday morning, I found just the book. I devoured Meichi Ng's Bare
...Any student found in possessionof the magazine The Quibbler will be expelled.
Next week is Banned Books Week. This is probably the first year in over four years that I don't have a plan to read any banned book. Not because I don't want to, but more because I haven't yet got the time to choose a read. Maybe by this weekend, I'll decide one, maybe I will just let this year go by and celebrate the week in spirit.
It's funny though, how, with the Banned Books week just around the corner, we already have a few parents clamoring to ban another popular book, Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor and Park, and calling to discipline the librarians who chose that book. What??
I don't think I quite get the whole ban philosophy. I know I've said that repeatedly. I grew up reading whatever I wanted, even erotica, and I turned out fine, thankyouverymuch. It boggles my mind why people would want to ban books, rather than call for a discussion or fill one of those opt-out forms. According to me, banning books will do what banning The Quibbler did to Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter. All the kids are now for sure, going to want to read Eleanor and Park. They are going to be very curious about what the "dangerously obscene" thing is in the book. This incident brings to memory that whole ugly ban of Speak that happened a few years ago (that book was considered pornographic!).
The things some people say!
If I had a child, I would be more worried about the child reading Twilight, for its domination and subservience themes than something like Eleanor and Park.
I am going to start Eleanor and Park today. And I cannot wait. I've been looking forward to reading this one for so long.
Comments
And as you say, the whole theme and tone of a book is far more important than any isolated incidents of swearing etc.
I also admit I think Banned Books week is a bit of a misnomer and more of a marketing ploy. Books in the US aren't REALLY banned - they may not be in the school library, but they are pretty easy to find. But it's good to bring attention to incendiary novels, anyway!