Tuesday News: Man Booker shortlist, Norwegian Facebook censorship, YA National Book Award, Soar with Reading
The Man Booker Prize 2016 Shortlist – If you want to catch up on the Man Booker nominees, check out Rosario and Liz’s blogs, as both are working their way through the longlist. The list is disappointingly narrow in its geographical scope, but overall, what do you think?
Paul Beatty (US) The Sellout (Oneworld)
Deborah Levy (UK) Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton)
Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) His Bloody Project (Contraband)
Ottessa Moshfegh (US) Eileen (Jonathan Cape)
David Szalay (Canada-UK) All That Man Is (Jonathan Cape)
Madeleine Thien (Canada) Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Granta Books) – Man Booker Prize
Norway uproar gets Facebook to stop censoring iconic photo – DA reader Jolanda commented in yesterday’s news post about this story, and I wanted to make sure everyone saw it. Facebook censored and then deleted a Pulitzer Prize winning picture from the Vietnam War of a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack. They even deleted the picture when the Norwegian Prime Minister posted it, then choosing to kill her whole post. The company eventually reversed their position, explaining that “in some countries [a famous and well-respected photo depicting the horrors of war] might even qualify as child pornography.” Oh, Facebook.
Earlier on Friday, Norwegian PM Erna Solberg posted the photo in response to an ongoing controversy that had been brewing in the Nordic nation since Facebook deleted a post from author and journalist Tom Egeland that contained the pic and then subsequently banned him from the site.
Several Norwegian media outlets and private Facebook users came to Egeland’s defence and posted the photo in direct challenge to the social media giant’s censorship. Each time, it was deleted. . . .She called on the social media giant to “review its editing policy”.“I want my children and other children to grow up in a society where history is taught as it was. Where they can learn from historical events and mistakes,” Solberg wrote. “Today, pictures are such an important element in making an impression, that if you edit past events or people, you change history and you change reality.” – The Local
Kwame Alexander, “Booked” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Kate DiCamillo, “Raymie Nightingale” (Candlewick Press)
John Lewis, Andrew Aydin & Nate Powell (artist) “March: Book Three” (Top Shelf)
Grace Lin, “When the Sea Turned to Silver” (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Anna-Marie McLemore, “When the Moon Was Ours” (Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martin’s Press)
Meg Medina, “Burn Baby Burn” (Candlewick Press)
Sara Pennypacker & Jon Klassen (illustrator), “Pax” (Balzer & Bray / HarperCollins)
Jason Reynolds, “Ghost” (Atheneum Books for Young Readers / Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)
Caren Stelson, “Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story (Carolrhoda Books / Lerner Publishing Group)
Nicola Yoon, “The Sun Is Also a Star” (Delacorte Press / Penguin Random House) – Los Angeles Times
JetBlue’s Soar With Reading Book Vending Machine Program Expands to Florida – Speaking of young people and books, this program is so cool. I frankly think they need these in every US city, especially considering that more than 20% of kids in the US live below the poverty line (and Florida is above that average). Almost half of the country’s children live in what are classified as “low income” households.
After a successful summer in Detroit, JetBlue’s Soar with Reading program — which provides free books in vending machines to children in needy neighborhoods — will be headed to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, next summer.
Fort Lauderdale was named the program’s next destination after winning the #BookBattle online voting competition, which ended last month.
The book vending machine program aims to distribute free books to children living in areas known as “book deserts.” The vending machines also help combat the “summer slide,” a term Susan B. Neuman, professor of literacy development and early childhood at New York University, describes as occurring when children do not have reading resources readily available during their summer break. – ABC News
Well, YEA JetBlue- there’s some good news I get behind.
I have not read either the Booker short list books or or the National Book Award finalists in the young people’s literature category, but a number of them look good. Thank you for posting these links. I love this time of year because lists!