Friday News: Banning, hand-binding, hand-writing, and building a tree out of books

JanetPublishing NewsBanned-Books / book binding / book sculpture / J.K. Rowling5 Comments

Banning ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’? Virginia school pulls books after parent’s complaint – And here we go again. Huck Finn, in particular, has faced numerous challenges, in part because of the book’s ambiguous portrayal of racist attitudes, and in the wake of the U.S. election, we may see more challenges to books that parents fear will perpetuate the use of racist slurs.  Then there are the ‘kids shouldn’t read about sex’ challenges, which are always integral to the U.S. book-banning agenda:

“Huckleberry Finn” and “Mockingbird” aren’t the only books to face challenges in schools recently. Some parents in the Chicago suburb of Lemont have criticized the local high school’s use of Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things” and Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” citing the books’ sexual content, the Cook County Chronicle reports.

Lemont resident Rick Ligthart suggested that the school ban any books that contained “literal, metaphorical, figurative or allegorical words for male or female genitals.”

“English classes should not be involved in sexuality in literature for our kids. It shouldn’t be in any books. No books,” he said. “We can’t have 18-year-olds reading about masturbation or sexual issues, regardless of the literature. I don’t care if it’s from Dickens or who else.” – Los Angeles Times

Book hand-written and illustrated by J.K. Rowling up for sale – Despite all the ways I would have no interest in this book, even if I had the money, it’s pretty damn cool looking. And all of the ways in which Rowling continues to profit from the Potter series are impressive (and apparently not ending anytime soon, regardless of what she might say about being done with Harry).

“The Tales of Beedle the Bard” is one of six copies the author produced to give as gifts to those who helped bring the story of the boy wizard to life, and is seen fetching 300,000-500,000 pounds ($378,000-$630,000) at Tuesday’s sale.

“The Tales of Beedle the Bard” is a volume of five wizarding fairy tales left to Hermione Granger by Albus Dumbledore in the final book in the “Harry Potter” series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”. – Reuters

Binding a Book Seems Like a Really Good Way to Relieve Stress – This video is really hypnotic, and I suspect that knitters and crocheters will find it especially appealing. If you’re interested, you can click on the original article linked below (it’s in Portuguese, FYI), and then go down the rabbit hole to peruse even more Preguiça Magazine articles. See you in a few hours.

Fine. Book binding would only be a great stress reliever if you were as good at book binding as Armando Costa and Florindo Simões are but then if you were, you’d be a professional book binder and it would be your job and might even be the cause of your stress. – Gizmodo

Book tree finds a more prominent location in library – A Christmas tree composed of books – what a great idea, and not just for trees. This is exactly the kind of book art/sculpture I’d expect from a library, although I am right now suppressing the urge to build one of these in my living room. Does your library do this kind of thing with out of circulation books?

The tree, about 5 feet across at its base and more than 7 feet high with a Christmas star on top, is composed entirely of books laid flat and in circles with the books in each higher layer overlapping the books in the layer below. . . .Books that were used to make the tree came from those pulled out of circulation because of infrequent usage, along with ones from the collection of donated books that haven’t been shelved. – Grand Island Independent

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

→ Janet