Whoopi Goldberg reads banned books

Shel Silverstein and Whoopi Goldberg? A good combination.

Helen: Banned Book Week at work

Banned Book Week at a high school

Banned Book Week is over and it went pretty well at work for me (I am a high school teacher librarian). In the past I've done displays, a daily bulletin announcement with BBW facts, and at lunch teachers have read from banned books. Unfortunately, students don't tend to join us for the readings so this year I dropped that part of the week. Less stress for me and the teachers who volunteered in the past.

However, the display part is always fun. I have poster boards with lists of banned books as well as charts showing why books are banned, who bans them, and how many get banned each year. This year I stole an idea from a fellow teacher librarian and put the banned books in brown paper bags, which ended up being very beneficial and led to many fun discussions.

Students were definitely attracted to the bags that were on shelves throughout the library. They peeked inside to see which book had been banned and it got them asking questions and talking about banning much more than in the past. It was especially effective since I made sure to include favorites such as Twilight and Harry Potter as well as books they read in their English classes such as Of Mice and Men and To Kill A Mockingbird. I read that another teacher librarian uses caution tape on her display and I love the idea so next year I am going to add caution tape on the Library front doors.

Bonnie's Review ~ A Day No Pigs Would Die

Review for Banned Books Week (BBW #22)

A Day No Pigs Would Die ~ by Robert Newton Peck, 1972, YA fiction (Vermont)

I've had a hard time trying to decide how to tell you about this book.  It's been challenged and banned because of its graphic violence and sexual content.  It has both.  It starts with the boy, Robert, nearly getting killed saving a calf when the cow had trouble giving birth.  The novel has a scene where a boar is thrown in with a pig who hasn't gone into heat and basically rapes the pig who is screaming the whole time.  And there's one heartbreaking day when the pig raised by a 12-year-old boy must be slaughtered to provide food for the family.  The boy, who "becomes a man" that day, had already learned how getting his chores done felt good, and he is aware of the beauty of the world around him.  There was a lot of violence, but it depicted what life was like on a Shaker farm.

One complaint given by those who challenge this book is that the novel condones animal cruelty.  And this is the scene that bothered me the most.  The boy's father, Haven, invites his neighbor to let his dog learn weasel-killing skills on a weasel Haven has captured in the chicken coop.  The two animals are thrown in together.  When it's over, the weasel is dead, but the dog is so badly injured that she must be put to sleep.  However, the father realizes he can't ever let that happen again, no matter how many chickens he loses.  Nobody enjoyed what happened, and it wasn't done out of callousness.  The father is trying to teach his son about "doing what's got to be done."

"I swear," Papa said.  "I swear by the Book of Shaker and all that's holy.  I will never again weasel a dog.  Even if  I lose every chicken I own."

His father told Robert he would not live much longer, and the boy would have to be a man at thirteen.  We see how tender-hearted Robert is by what he does afterwards.

"I sat watching the red cinders turn gray.  I stayed there until the fire died.  So it would not have to die alone."

Haven, the father, was a butcher.  He's the one who had to slaughter his son's pig.  That's the most memorable scene in the book -- and the one shown on the cover above.  The boy/young man said,

"Oh, Papa.  My heart's broke."
"So is mine" said Papa.

And the son forgave what his father had to do.  Robert was given the piglet, named it Pinky, raised it, fattened it up, and won a prize showing her.  The pig was barren, and the family didn't have enough meat for the winter or enough feed to keep the pig as a pet.  Slaughtering it was necessary.  The son knew...

"He did it. Because he had to. Hated to and had to. And he knew he’d never have to say to me that he was sorry."

When Haven the butcher died, his co-workers came to his funeral, making that "a day no pigs would die."  Because of Haven’s death, the pigs would live an additional day.

I rate this book 8 of 10, a very good book.

Also posted on my Bonnie's Books blog.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preparing for a party. As she walks through London on a fine June morning, picking up fresh flowers, decorations, and finding just the right dress. As she prepares her home for the event, she is flooded with memories of her past -from Peter Walsh, whom she spurned years ago, to her daughter Elizabeth, the girl’s angry teacher, Doris Kilman, and war-shocked Septimus Warren Smith, who is sinking into madness.

As preparetions for the party continue, a series of events intrudes on her composure. Her husband is invited, without her, to lunch with Lady Bruton (who, Clarissa notes anxiously, gives the most amusing luncheons). Meanwhile, Peter Walsh appears, recently from India, to criticize and confide in her. His sudden arrival evokes memories of a distant past, the choices she made then, and her wistful friendship with Sally Seto…

"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself" ~ first sentence

Hmmmm…. as close the book on Mrs. Dalloway I am left with this one lingering thought…

hmmmm…..

I have never read anything by Virginia Woolf before, and with banned book week upon us I felt that this would be a great time to read this book I picked up earlier this year at a sale… this book, Mrs. Dalloway which is considered to be Virginia Woolf’s best book, as well as a banned book.

As I read through this 177 page read I found it to be rather detail oriented, flitting from one topic and one character to the next. The twenty plus characters al play a role in Clarissa’s memories but also you get a peek into their own as well. The book is to be a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway as she deals with the present and the past. Really for a book published in 1925, the idea behind the book is brilliant.

There are strong subject matters that float through the pages…. feminism, suicide, and apparently referenced homosexuality (more on that at the bottom of this review)

I think for me, who has recently been immersed in dystopia fiction, a steampunk novel on audio, as well as a modern-day thriller…. I found Mrs. Dalloway to be a bit of a bore. I hate to say that I do…. but being honest here, the book more than likely came to me at the wrong time. It happens.

Am I glad I had an opportunity to try Virginia Woolf? Yes. But as for me and Mrs. Dalloway, I think we are going to agree to part ways as mere acquaintances.

“It’s not you Clarissa, it’s me. “

So… Mrs. Dalloway? Why are you a Banned book?

Mrs. Dalloway was banned in some communities because of the homosexual attraction of Clarissa to Sally at Bourton. Apparently there is a reference as well of Septimus being haunted by the image of his dear friend Evans. Evans, his commanding officer, is described as being “undemonstrative in the company of women”.

Beloved by Toni Morrision

In the troubled years following the Civil War, the spirit of a murdered child haunts the Ohio home of a former slave. This angry, destructive ghost breaks mirrors, leaves its fingerprints in cake icing, and generally makes life difficult for Sethe and her family. People will not visit the home at 124 Bluestone road for it is clearly haunted – things moving on their own accord, a heavy reddish light of sorrow in the doorway. While Sethe’s daughter Denver would like to move, to escape this every ever enduring life, Sethe herself finds the haunting oddly comforting for the spirit is that of her own dead baby, never named, thought of only as Beloved.

Beloved is also a movie starring Oprah Winfrey

Does the above synopsis sound like a Paranormal read of today? It is not, instead it is a book released in 1997.

Beloved was my first book by Toni Morrision and I read this for banned book week.

In the beginning of Beloved, the haunting is merely ghost like, a feeling, a movement…. knowing someone is there. Soon in the book Paul D is introduced, a former friend of Sethe’s who is initially passing through the area, but upon making his way to Sethe’s door, finds that she was who he was searching for all along. His presence disturbs the ghost and brings her to full manifestation, in the body of a young woman who immediately falls upon the sympathies of Sethe and Denver as a woman who has nowhere to go and winds up staying with them.

Its hard to write my thoughts on beloved… it was at times powerful, the writing smoothly flowing on each page to the next as I followed Sethe’s loss and pain.. And then at other times it was disturbing. The entrance of Beloved and how she immediately wrapped herself into the family, only Paul D sensing that there was something about her that did not sit right…

As I closed the book (late at night) I had to sit with my thoughts for a bit, all jumbled and processing… was Beloved’s appearance into the home of Sethe a good thing? On one hand it led to abuse – both physical betrayal, and sexual. Her presence, being full accepted as it was creeped me out a bit. Yes on the other hand, Beloved’s arrival also forced Sethe, Denver, and Paul D to make the decsions they did…. to move on and beyond….

Perhaps even more so for me was the fact that Morrison based this book on actual events and the story of an escaped slave named Margaret Garner who had murdered her own child rather than see them all returned to slavery.

Overall Beloved is a disturbing read. Not always, in a bad way. This book made me think about the slavery in our history and the lengths people went to escape it. Toni Morrison shows us here through her work in Beloved, that some ways of escapes…

are not escapes at all.

Why was Beloved banned?

Challenged at the St. Johns County Schools in St. Augustine, FL (1995). Retained on the Round Rock, TX Independent High School reading list (1996) after a challenge that the book was too violent. Challenged by a member of the Madawaska, ME School Committee (1997) because of the book’s language. The 1987 Pulitzer Prize winning novel has been required reading for the advanced placement English class for six years. Challenged in the Sarasota County, FL schools (1998) because of sexual material. Retained on the Northwest Suburban High School District 214 reading listing in Arlington Heights, IL (2006), along with eight other challenged titles. A board member, elected amid promises to bring her Christian beliefs into all board decision-making, raised the controversy based on excerpts from the books she’d found on the Internet. Challenged in the Coeur d’Alene School District, ID (2007). Some parents say the book, along with five others, should require parental permission for students to read them. Pulled from the senior Advanced Placement (AP) English class at Eastern High School in Louisville, KY (2007) because two parents complained that the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about antebellum slavery depicted the inappropriate topics of bestiality, racism, and sex. The principal ordered teachers to start over with The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne in preparation for upcoming AP exams.

Bonnie's Review ~ The Face on the Milk Carton

Review for Banned Books Week (BBW #19)

The Face on the Milk Carton ~ by Caroline B. Cooney, 1990, YA fiction (Connecticut), 9/10

Summary:  A photograph of a missing girl on a milk carton leads 15-year-old Janie to think she was kidnapped a decade ago.  So she goes on a search for her real identity.

"Janie finished her essay.  She never knew what grade she would get in Mr. Brylowe's English class.  Whenever she joked, he wanted the essay serious.  Whenever she was serious, he had intended the essay to be light-hearted."

I was curious enough to keep reading after those opening lines, but more because of the mystery of that face on a milk carton.  Writing an essay?  That's what I do when I review a book.  On the other hand, when I was her age, I also had to learn about writing and (as I read on the next page or so) thought about names.  She thinks "Jane" is too plain, so she considers "Jayne."  I, on the other hand, was the only Bonnie I knew, besides the aunt I was named for, so I longed for a more usual kind of name.  I guess all kids feel weird about something.

I kept reading this book, but I wasn't imagining how it would feel if I'd been taken from my mom and dad, as I think most teens would, but as the mom wondering where her daughter was.  For example, this section really got to me.  All I could think was that her mother had missed all of these life events.

"Janie climbed the stairs to her room, passing by the ascending wall of photographs.  Her parents disliked albums: they immortalized Janie on the stairs.  Janie at the beach, on skis, in a Scout uniform, in her first dancing dress.  Janie on their trip to the Grand Canyon.  Janie in gymnastics.  Janie at the Middle School Awards Ceremony.  Janie on the runway for the fashion show the hospital sponsored as a benefit" (p. 26).

Why was this book banned?  I can't imagine, since there's nothing in it that seems objectionable.  Janie and a boy had an opportunity for sex, but didn't.  Yet in 2002-2003, it was challenged in Texas Public Schools for "sexual content and challenge to authority."  Ignore them and read the book, which kept me turning the pages.  When I learned there are three more books in the series, I got online tonight and put them on hold at my library so I can read.....

Whatever happened to Janie? (1993)
The Voice on the Radio (1996)
What Janie Found (2000)

I rate this one 9 of 10, an excellent book.  Also posted on my Bonnie's Books blog.

Helen on Banned Book Week

Banned Book Week. How strange that we celebrate this, but I think it's such an important issue. I totally understand that a parent might want to keep a certain book away from their own child, but to try to take it away from everyone? Seriously? What happened to freedom of speech? Don't these banners understand that books are more interesting when they are banned?

Wait! I get it, the people who ban are really trying to get their kids to read by making it seem more enticing, right? No? Oh well, silly them.

Here are some of my favorite banned books because they are linked to fond life memories.

• Judy Blume's books--who can forget discovering what it's all about through Are You There God, It's Me Margaret and Then Again Maybe I Won't.

• Go Ask Alice--I remember passing this one around in sixth grade and encouraging each other to read the dog-eared pages. Decades later this is still a favorite amongst students at the high school where I work.

• The Harry Potter series--every darn one of these (and the movies) is dear to me. When I got to see Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station in London, I was SO excited!

• Of Mice and Men and To Kill A Mockingbird--both of these were books that I actually enjoyed reading in school even though they were required.