BW39: Freedom to Read

 

This week we celebrate the freedom to read. Beginning in 210bc with Chinese emperor Shih Huang Ti, to the present, books have been challenged, outright banned and even burned for the thoughts and ideas written in their pages.  Challengers have many reasons, afraid their children will be exposed to differences they choose not to acknowledge, afraid they will be exposed to people or language or ideas they don't agree with. 

The fear of words, ones that teach and reach right into your very soul and expose you to new ideas, is a powerful thing. Letters on a page. One word, two, a sentence, a paragraph, one building upon another, to a book full of  words that motivate, illuminate, educate, and open our eyes, our minds, our hearts and souls to different people, cultures, and worlds, both real and imaginary.  Books that lift us up, fill us with joy as well as sorrow, teach us to analyze and debate and think about what if.   

Banned Books Week was created in 1982 by the American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom, in response to challenges and requests to ban books from libraries and bookstores due to their content.  Eight out of the top ten most challenged books for 2019 were for their LGBTQIA+ content. The last two, the Harry Potter series for exposing children to magic and witchcraft and nefarious characters, and The Handmaid's Tale for vulgarity and sexual overtones.  Every year, the ALA receives complaints and requests to remove classic books from the library and/or the curriculum. 

How Banning Books Marginalizes Children

Why Your Kid Should Read Banned Books

Parental fear and cultural erasure: The logic behind banning books.

California School District considers ban on classic books.

Who Should Decide What Books Are Allowed In Prison?

Kuwait relaxes book censorship laws after banning thousands of titles

Editorial on Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board Banning books part I and Part II

Around the globe - A Map of Forbidden Books in 2019 

Access a database of 70,000 books banned around the world going back to 1575

Celebrate your freedom to read a banned or challenged book this week! 

Please share your book reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

BW38: September Equinox

 

Time for the changing of the seasonal guard with Autumn marching into view in the Northern Hemisphere and Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. What's the first thing to comes to mind when you think about Autumn or Spring?  Either the leaves are changing colors or flowers are beginning to bloom - nature's  circle of life.  Which brings us to our Fall Reading Mini Challenge.  

Read a book with Fall or Spring in the title

Read a book with seasons or weather in the title

Read a book with woods, forests, leaves, or trees on the cover

Read a book with a color in the title

Read a book about colors 

Read a book about color guards

Pick a color and pick a book with the color on the cover. 

Read a book with a colorful character. 

Read a book with a character with color in their name.

Settle in to read one of the New Books for Fall, Oprah's picks for Fall, 12 books to keep you occupied for the rest of 2020 or Books set in the Southern Hemisphere

Challenge yourself to Spell out Equinox, Autumn, Fall, or Spring, using one book for each letter from the title. 

Happy Equinox!  ~Cheers~ 

Please share your book reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.

BW37: In the Grass by Hamlin Garland

In the Grass

By 

Hamlin Garland 

(09/14/1860 to 03/04/1940)

O TO lie in long grasses!

O to dream of the plain!

Where the west wind sings as it passes

A weird and unceasing refrain;

Where the rank grass wallows and tosses,

And the plains’ ring dazzles the eye;

Where hardly a silver cloud bosses

The flashing steel arch of the sky.

To watch the gay gulls as they flutter

Like snowflakes and fall down the sky,

To swoop in the deeps of the hollows,

Where the crow’s-foot tosses awry,

And gnats in the lee of the thickets

Are swirling like waltzers in glee

To the harsh, shrill creak of the crickets,

And the song of the lark and the bee.

O far-off plains of my west land!

O lands of winds and the free,

Swift deer—my mist-clad plain!

From my bed in the heart of the forest,

From the clasp and the girdle of pain

Your light through my darkness passes;

To your meadows in dreaming I fly

To plunge in the deeps of your grasses,

To bask in the light of your sky!

Who is Hamlin Garland, literary creed, stories, homestead, Wisconsin marker 100, and Hamlin Garland's Colorado.

*****

Please share your book reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.


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BW36: 52 Books Bingo - Antebellum

Courtesy of Realtor.com - Antebellum architecture

Our next 52 Books Bingo category is taking us back to the Antebellum period which took place after the war of 1812 (1812-1815) and before the civil war (1861-1865). A period of time in which American writers wrote about American themes and created the short story genre and the penny press.    

Views through Pen and Ink: North Carolina's Antebellum Literature Records an Era

American Literature-American Romantic or Antebellum Era: 1800-60

Women in Antebellum America

Antebellum Era Books

Antebellum Books 

North American Slave Narratives 

American Literature before 1865

Library of Southern Literature - Antebellum period

Historical Romance Antebellum Books

Read about one or more Presidents who served from 1816 to 1861 from James Madison (1809-1817), James Monroe (1817-1825),  John Quincy Adams (1825-1829),  Andrew Jackson (1829 - 1837),  Martin Van Buren (1837-1841), William Henry Harrison (1841), John Tyler (1841-1845), James Polk (1845-1849), Zachary Taylor (1849-1850), Millard Fillmore (1850-1853), Franklin Pierce (1853-1857), to James Buchanan (1857 - 1861).  

Take some time to armchair travel through history this year! 


Please share your book reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.


In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.