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Reports of my demise...
Are greatly exaggerated. Yes, I have been absent for a while. I am still recovering from treatments that left me pretty much bedridden from October until January. But I am working my way slowly back to conferences and workshops.
I am pleased to share with you the announcement of the finalists for the Walden Award from ALAN. If you are saying to ( Read more... ) -
Passing the Torch, Part theThird (and possibly last)
Since I last had the chance to post anything here, I had 3 conversations that underscored what I have been trying to do with this series of posts. One was a lunch with Franki Sibberson, President of NCTE. I also had the chance to visit with the amazing Kylene Beers, a past President of NCTE, a long-time friend and a fellow warrior dealing with ( Read more... ) -
Passing the Torch, Part the Second
Apparently, I caused a little bit of concern with the last post which seemed to some to be my "farewell" post. It was not intended to be so, though the time for that post is not that distant that I have not given it some thought. However, what I am tackling with that post and this one and perhaps one more is the schizophrenic nature with which I ( Read more... ) -
Passing the Torch, Part the First
I have been trying to write this blog post for some time now. What has gotten in the way? Chemo brain will accept some of the fault. I learned this the first time around with chemo 18 months ago: chemo is a tad indiscriminate when it comes to attacking cells. Yes, it kills cancerous cells. However, it kills other less dangerous cells. Hence ( Read more... ) -
Home
Well, that was a long absence from blogging for me (and I hope for my readers). Just in case you did mot know, I have been home only a week after more than 3 months in hospitals dealing with what was thought to be another round of cancer plus the treatments. Now I am home trying to grow my hair back (yes, I am bald once again thanks to chemo) and ( Read more... ) -
The end of the week but not the end of the work
It is not only the book that can be challenged as a recent report from Massachusetts proves: http://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/local_news/in-foxboro-library-exhibit-on- ( Read more... ) -
News you can use
The Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association (ALAOIF) offers newsletters with resources, links to stories about challenges, and more. Here is the current issue: http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=11018Read more... ) -
Banned: don't stand for it
What can we do? ALA offers some suggestions for things we could do with our students (http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/bannedbooksweek/rebelreader). My grad students have to complete an assignment on censorship that requires they compile a list of 20 ( Read more... ) -
Banned! Why?
Why are books banned or challenged? It is important for each of us to know this. Fortunately, there are resources to let us know why challenges have occurred. I know that sometimes, when I read about the reason for a challenge, I want to say, "Really?" Not that there are good reasons for challenging a book, but occasionally the reasons are so ( Read more... ) -
Banning and Challenging
During Banned Books Week, it is important to know as much as we can about banned and challenged books. One of the thins I try to do is not only to read the books being banned and challenged each year (it always seems there are at least a couple of new ones), I also order some titles and then give them away ( Read more... )