Unreturned library book leads to woman's arrest

Unreturned library book leads to woman's arrest (copied below) was published online day before yesterday (January 24th), but I didn't get around to reading it until just now. I was surprised to learn the book she failed to return was one of the books we discussed here: The Freedom Writers Diary. (Click on the title to read our posts about the book, or click here to read what we said about the book on my Book Buddies blog.)

INDEPENDENCE, Iowa – An Iowa woman has been arrested because she failed to return a library book. Thirty-nine-year-old Shelly Koontz was arrested Thursday night on a fifth-degree theft charge. She is accused of keeping "The Freedom Writers Diary," which she checked out from the public library in nearby Jesup in April. Police say the book — which is about a high school teacher's effort to inspire students to write — is valued at $13.95. Court records show library employees tried repeatedly to contact Koontz by phone and mail. A police officer even visited her home last September. Officials at the Buchanan County jail say Koontz was released after posting $250 bond.

It appears to me this woman "borrowed" the book in order to take it out of circulation, which may be the REAL reason she was arrested. What do you think?

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Originally published in 1974.
Unabridged audio book published in 1993;
narrated by George Guidall.


This book has been described as "a brilliant, unflinching portrait of vicious mob cruelty and conformity in an exclusive prep school."

I think my expectations of The Chocolate War were too high. Although I found parts of the novel to have been brilliantly conceived - particularly the idea that something as banal as chocolate could be the cause of so much violence - the whole thing just didn't come together for me. I wanted to go away with some new insight or having been changed in some way. That just didn't happen.

The book has been widely challenged over the years. The book is second on the American Library Association's list of the 10 most challenged books of 2007. The reasons given are as follows: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence.

While I didn't find The Chocolate War to be all I wanted it to be, I'm still glad I read it. First, I think it's worthwhile to read books that are considered to be "classics." Second, it's important to me that I be allowed to judge a book for myself and not let those who would decide what is "good" or "appropriate" for me - and the rest of us - to do that.

(Cross-posted from my book blog.)

NOTE to Language Arts Teachers

Today I got an email from a language arts teacher whose class recently finished reading banned books of their choosing. She wrote:

I was wondering if you would mind if they posted their responses on your banned books blog. There are 30 of them, so it might flood your blog a little. I would just like them to know that this cause isn’t contained to our class, and that it’s an issue that inspires passion in many.

That's a great idea, isn't it? I wrote back:

I would be delighted for them to share their responses, and you may tell them I said so! Flooding the blog is NOT a problem. All of us have one or more other blogs, and most of us review all sorts of books -- banned or not.

If you send me their email addresses (which I would never share with anyone else), I will happily invite each one of them to post under their own names. If that isn't acceptable to you, let me know how you want to do it. Please include your own email, and I'll invite you as well. Then you would be able to tell the world about your class's project and introduce us to your students. (The most recent posts are at the top, so we may have to plan it if your post comes before theirs -- by having all thirty of them get their posts up before you add your own.)

After that, it's up to you how long you want them to continue to have access to the blog. As far as I'm concerned, they are welcome to remain as permanent contributors. That means in the coming years, as long as neither they nor I delete their names from the list, they will be able to post about other banned books they read. Each contributor has the option of choosing to end her or his participation at any time. It can be done without telling me, though I wouldn't mind knowing if you decide to quit. I'm sure at least SOME of the students will be excited enough to want to continue reading banned books because of your efforts to enlighten them. Thanks for the work you do.

It may interest you to know that, even a month after Banned Books Week 2008, this Banned Books blog is still my most visited blog.

Are any of you readers wondering why I'm posting this here? I responded to the teacher immediately and clicked "REPLY" to let her know how pleased I am, but Yahoo can't get the email through to her, for some reason. I hope she'll see this post and the invitation to post that I sent her, if Blogger is able to use that email address. Email me again, teacher (whose name I'm not using without permission). Other teachers who assign banned books to your students, please consider letting your students post here as well. Then email me for invitations: emerging DOT paradigm AT yahoo DOT com.

Catch-22: book & film

I've had a long and tumultuous relationship with the novel Catch-22. As an undergrad, I was an English major, and it seemed to me that every male professor I ever had assigned Catch-22. The first time I read it, I felt pretty lukewarm about it. I enjoyed the humor and the structure, but I just hate war novels. Any war novels. There are even books I claim to love whose war chapters I skipped. Even if an author (like Joseph Heller) agrees strongly with me that war is the stupidest, most absurd and insane thing human beings do, I probably don't want to read his novel. I say his because women rarely write war novels.

By the third time the novel was assigned, I didn't even read it again. I was annoyed because I'd sold my first and second copies back to the bookstore and wasn't about to buy it again. The really irritating thing about all this was that none of the professors assigned even remotely similar topics for their papers, so I couldn't even recycle my writing.

In grad school, I took a course called The Comic Novel. It started out well, with Candide (the only other novel I was ever assigned more than once) and Tristram Shandy. Did you know they were both published in the same year, 1759? But when the time for Catch-22 rolled around, I was really starting to identify with Yossarian, and I wondered if my university had raised the number of times the book had to be read to 80.

When my husband and I began our tradition of reading aloud to each other (a habit we formed in our first week together), guess what was the first novel he wanted to read together? It was his belief that I really would love the book, if I could just form a positive association with it instead of having the number of missions papers I had to write about it raised every time I thought I'd written my last paper.

But it was our first week together, and I had little hearts dancing around my head, so I agreed. I was just smitten enough to believe that hearing it read in his voice could change my feelings about it. I did appreciate it a bit more, whether that was because my husband read it to me or because I didn't have to write papers about it or whether I just wasn't annoyed this time. I actually laughed out loud in places. But, you know, it was still a war novel.

And then yesterday I saw the 1970 film for the first time. And, well, it was a war film. But pretty good as war films go. I especially liked the camera angles. Unfortunately for the people involved in making the film, MASH was released the same year. I haven't seen that movie, either. War film. I've seen a couple episodes of the TV series by accident, but not many. War series.

Here's a page of trivia about the Catch-22 film.

There are almost as many different covers of the novel as the number of times I had to read the book for college.

You can read an excerpt here.

Celebrating Banned Books Week

September 27 - October 4, 2008

Banned Books week is celebrated each year in the Fall by the ALA. In honor of the women who have had their works banned or censored, why not read a banned book by a talented woman writer? I've posted some choices at my blog Women Writers here.

You might also be interested in reading about women around the world who are in peril because of what they write. That post is here.

Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week is September 27 – October 4 this year. Why not plan to read a banned book to celebrate our freedom to read? Then come back here and tell us which book(s) you read. Click to enlarge this poster so you can read the words, such as "Marvel at the threatening Anastasia Krupnik." See that 25 down in the corner? It's the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week. Now, what would you like to read?



Here are the Ten Most Challenged Books of 2007:

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language

4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Reasons: Religious Viewpoint

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Reasons: Racism

6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language

7. TTYL (Talk To You Later) by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Reasons: Sexually Explicit

9. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10. The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

Off the top-ten list this year are two books by author Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye and Beloved which were both challenged for sexual content and offensive language. They were on the 2006 list.

Freedom to Read - Individual Rights vs. Government Control

The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label “controversial” views, to distribute lists of “objectionable” books or authors, and to purge libraries. -From The Freedom to Read Statement, ALA Website-

Banned Books Week is September 27th - October 4th.

• Shi Huang, in 213 BC, started the ritual of burning books when he ordered books destroyed which he perceived as a threat to his rule as the first emperor of China.

• On May 10, 1933 German students from renowned universities gathered in Berlin and other German cities to burn tens of thousands of books with “unGerman” ideas. Books by Freud, Einstein, Thomas Mann, Jack London, and H.G. Wells along with others written by gifted writers went up in smoke.

• In 1980 a cultural revolution was launched and bands of Hezbollahis and Islamists attacked, destroyed and burnt libraries in Iran.

What do each of these examples have in common? They are an expression of a Government’s power to impose its own ideology on a people. Most Americans will read this and believe that what happened in 213 BC China, and 1930s Germany and 1980s Iran is far removed from their own experience in 2008 USA. But they would be wrong.

Americans freedom to read is challenged daily - often by local governments or fundamentalist religious groups. Books in the United States have been censored, banned, removed from libraries and taken out of schools. Often books come under attack because they conflict with somebody’s religious beliefs or they express a point of view which someone deems amoral. When we interfere with someone’s freedom to read we are imposing our ideology on that person.

I believe people have a right to pursue (or not) their own spiritual or religious path; they have a right to voice their thoughts on morality, politics, or world view. But I do not believe they have the right to tell someone else what to believe and then impose that by removing from society any reading material which does not support their ideology. That is why I track all the books I read which have been banned or censored. That is why at one time I moderated a Banned Books Group on Yahoo. That is why I contribute to Bonnie’s Banned Books Blog. And that is why when I read this article, I was alarmed enough to do something I do not normally do - introduce politics.

I’m not here to discuss my thoughts on Sarah Palin’s religious views because those should not have anything to do with her job as Vice President if the McCain/Palin ticket were to be elected in November. I do not want to know about Sarah Palin’s religious views. And I do not want her religious views and her sense of what is or is not moral imposed on me or any other American. I am appalled to think that Palin tried to do just that in her position of Mayor of Wasilla by pressuring the City librarian to remove or censor books from the library. Her letter to said librarian “requesting” her resignation was (according to Palin) just a test of loyalty. To me it smacks of bullying.

Here’s a good question - shouldn’t a Mayor be more concerned with crime, transportation and housing…rather than censoring books? Is Palin’s sense of righteousness so much a part of who she is that she could not separate her own personal beliefs from doing her job as Mayor? Do we really want our elected officials telling us what we can and cannot read?

Thomas Jefferson introduced the concept of Separation of Church and State as an inherent part of our First Amendment Rights. Although there is much discussion about this concept, it is clear that our Founding Fathers meant for religion to be removed from the act of governing our country. Does anyone think they would have approved of the government (local, state or federal) censoring or banning books as a way of imposing religious ideology on others? I don’t think so.

Sarah Palin’s brief tenure as a Mayor of a small Alaskan town (population approximately 9000), and her even shorter stint as Governor of Alaska (where she is currently under investigation on ethics charges) may be the only way for Americans to measure her ability to separate her strongly held fundamentalist beliefs from her sought after position of Vice President (and potentially President) of the United States. We should all consider this before entering the voting booth in November.

**Please be respectful in your comments. I welcome dialogue on this issue of BANNING BOOKS. Any disrespectful, flame-type comments will be immediately deleted.

**This article is cross posted from my personal book blog Caribousmom.