Voting - Count your blessings!

Could it be any easier? Everything is handed to us - candidate info, ballot issue pamphlet written by the Secretary of State right in our mailboxes, time away from work and school to vote and on campus they will even drive you to the polling station. We are so spoiled!

      This semester, we read a children's picture book set under Stalin's rule called Breaking Stalin's Nose. This book is no "fluff and puff". It is a serious look from a child's perspective about living under Stalin's "democracy"  - it gave me chills! 
     Imagine what it's like to be told you have a vote, but be forced to vote how the authority's want you to vote. Voting any other way would mean you are a traitor and traitors go to the labor camp. Usually we call that "dystopian", but it's real life, baby. This little book based on the experiences of Eugene Yelchin and his father can make you count your blessings all the way to the voting booth:


Find Breaking Stalin's Nose at Goodreads.com

Children's Festival of the Book

 
     Bozemanites love their books!  For a city of 40,000 people they recently built a 50,000 square foot LEED certified library. That's just under 1 square foot per person. With the average novel having a one inch spine, I'd say they have 12 books per person in Bozeman.

     So, what to do with all that space? CELEBRATE! The 5th annual Children's Festival of the Book was out of this world! Caldecott winner Paul Zelinsky gave a wildly entertaining presentation about how he became an illustrator and how illustrating a book happens. Here he is signing Z is for Moose for my son, Dakota.

     And Ernest Hemmingway's grandson who is a fantastic children's author and illustrator, Edward Hemmingway is signing Bump in the Night for him too. He looks so much like his grandfather!

Both are unique stories - Moose is taking over the boring alphabet book, Bump in the Night is about a good monster who captures all the other monsters for the boy who is afraid of the dark.

And for young adult literature fans, Jeanne DuPrau's City of Ember novel and graphic novel adaptation. What was even more fantastic than having her sign them, was sitting in on her presentation titled, "The Road to Ember".

Word of wisdom shared by Jeanne for the audience who may want to write:

• Know your grammar
• Write about what you like
• Write about what you dislike
• Write about what you know
• Write about what terrifies you

...and all those people and things important to you will come to the surface.

Her presentation was followed by a hands on circuit building session with light bulbs and wires - so cool! 

After listening to Jeanne DuPrau, my 9 year old told a wild story all the way home about HIS ideal underground city. I tell you, he didn't stop with one novel idea but told about each book in his series. The boys and I can't WAIT for the next festival!

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Do I look like I'm ready for Comic-Con?

Is this a writer's costume?

      I got the shirt made  and the inspirational Wonder-socks. How about the Comic-Con pass I'm trying to flip over in the pict - maybe that's convincing? Or maybe the Query/Reject letters in the briefcase? If only I had a picture of myself with Chewbaka, that would be convincing!

     It was tons of fun! I couldn't help thinking that when writers are in Starbucks typing away on their laptops, are the really just collecting data on strangers?

And to make it even more fun, I got to make my teenagers VOTE FOR PEDRO shirts and one most certainly pulled off the Napoleon costume! 

And to top it all off, our church's Harvest Party was such a blast AND had team of Fire-dancers!!

Need Costume Help!

Here we go readers, I need some help with my costume for tomorrow. I am going to be a writer!

So far, I have a shirt in the works that says:

"Careful, or you'll end up in my novel."

A Starbucks cup.

A briefcase with query letters sticking out - rejects included.

Ratty Notebook

Pens in my hair

What else do I need to be convincing as a writer? (besides talent!)


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Banned Book Week Wrap Up

     Having given Banned Books Week a shot this year, I'm trying to put it someplace in my head - someplace concrete, like yes, I agree, no I don't. Looks like I'm still on the fence. I still think school libraries need some censorship based on maturity - a parent permission shelf would be a good idea for over-the-top novels. In my opinion, public libraries should only have censorship when it comes to the safety of others. For example, books on bomb making at home and books written by pedophiles really shouldn't be bought with public tax dollars for citizens use. 

     In our class session we learned that the state of Arizona is banning all curriculum and library books that support multicultural education on the basis that it is "Anti-American". Wow-that's progress. Here we are taking courses designed to make us be culturally literate teachers and have Indian Education for All requirements for our lessons. We are learning to teach with a completely different approach and there they are in Arizona - de-evolving! 

     How about this for food for thought -  Three books I was really surprised to see on the banned list are Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain and Are You There God? It's me Margaret. 
     I read an article recently that someone was proposing to write a censored version of Hucklberry Finn for classroom use (with good intentions due to use of the N word). And almost every girl between the ages of 30-45 loved Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's me Margaret. So there you have it! The answer to the most often challenged author is Judy Blume with 5 books on the banned list.  

Which book surprised you the most?

all images sourced from goodreads.com

Banned books prove that....

.....the written word is more powerful than movies.

What? How could that be when people spend millions to see box office hits every week, but many people don't read at all?

Hilarious, yet highly offensive & challenge-worthy!

The simple fact that people take the time to submit challenges for and protest and even burn books is proof. When's the last time anyone legally challenged a movie in a public library?*



What do you think? Can you disprove it?


                            Do you see the POWA'?

                                                                   WORD!




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*Credit to Sheila at MSU library for hinting at this

More on Banned Books Week

     So, in our Children's Literature class today we had a good half-hour presentation all about the history of censorship and the processes of challenging a book in a school and it was really interesting!

I won The Perks of Being a Wallflower

     Book banning goes back a long, long way and sometimes you can see why, for the time period, a book would be challenged. It was even more interesting because she focused on specific Montana challenges. Imagine your teenager graduating high school in Butte, MT and writing a book calling their hometown residents "dry and warped" -  banned!

     She helped us make sense of it all and I feel much better knowing that books in school libraries have to have certain criteria to be included in the collection. So, no, my teenager probably won't find a copy of Shades of Grey in his high school collection and write a book report on it. And yes, teachers can have some say if a student chooses something that's way above their maturity level for an assignment. Still, the amount of backup required for a teacher's choice is incredible.Whew! 

   And, just for fun she had trivia and prizes and I answered this question correctly and won a banned book I know nothing about, lets see if you can guess:

What children to adult author is most currently challenged?


Here's a link for hints - this author has 5 books on the top 100 Most Challenged books.