How to use this Page

Tea out of my nose, people.

TEA OUT OF MY NOSE.

Oh, it stings.

(Via Fuse. Speaking of, I just blessed her with what might be the nerdiest comment I've ever written.)

And the winners (?) are:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

Reasons: Homosexuality, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

Reasons: Offensive language, Racism, Sex Education, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group, Violence

3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Reasons: Insensitivity, Offensive Language, Racism, Sexually Explicit

4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins

Reasons: Drugs, Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit

5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group, Violence

6. Lush, by Natasha Friend

Reasons: Drugs, Offensive Language, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group

7. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones

Reasons: Sexism, Sexually Explicit, Unsuited to Age Group

8. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America, by Barbara Ehrenreich

Reasons: Drugs, Inaccurate, Offensive Language, Political Viewpoint, Religious Viewpoint

9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie

Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit

10. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

Reasons: Religious Viewpoint, Violence

I've read 6/10. You?

A tumblog devoted to creating poetry from Westboro Baptist's hate literature:

...resulting in a hung jury.

...I said to a patron that from what I'd read (of the actual Bible as well as about the Bible) that I think it would be easy to find a quotation to back up pretty much any argument that you'd like to make.

Because there's a lot of stuff in there. Some of which makes sense, and some of which is aliens.

Anyway, I'd seen the 'God Hates Figs' sign from the RtRSa/oF Rally, and just assumed that it was poking fun at the message favored by the Westboro Baptist Church.

But, thanks to Lee, I've learned that there's a bit more to it than that. Mark II: 12-14 reads:

¹²And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry:

 ¹³And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.

 ¹⁴And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.

Hee! Anyway, Lee also pointed me to this thread at Reddit, in which people are pretty hilarious about the passage, but also talk about different interpretations of/reactions to it. (Which range in seriousness from a call to ban Fig Newtons to an explanation of the fig tree as a metaphor.)

From io9:

Michael Caine has joined a large group of drama pros in a science fiction retelling of Henry V, set on the edge of the apocalypse.

It sounds INSANE. I might DIE from the awesome.

From Jim C. Hines' Slush I Read:

Do you like fanfic with vamps?

I do not like them Mary Sue.
Why do these vamps all worship you?

Go!  Go!  Go read the entire thing, it all its hilarious glory!

(via OUP)

According to this article, the parent "requested an official review" of Glass.  Which I assume means that the book has been officially challenged.

So the superintendent felt that as the book was under review, it wasn't appropriate for the visit to continue.  As per district policy, the books will remain in the school library until a decision is made.

I rather think he should have treated her visit the same way -- until a decision is made, the book stays on the shelves, so it follows (in my mind) that her visit should have continued as planned as well, and according to him, the district policy states that parents can exclude their children from events, so it isn't like there wasn't already an out for the parents who are uncomfortable with the book -- but it's always easy to be a backseat driver in situations like this.

Anyway, I'm glad that Karin Perry (the librarian) was able to schedule an off-campus event -- regardless of what happens at the school, Ellen Hopkins will speak at the Hillsboro Free Baptist College at 7:30 tonight.

____________________________________________________________________

Previously:

Just in time for Banned Books Week...

According to this article, the parent "requested an official review" of Glass.  Which I assume means that the book has been officially challenged.

So the superintendent felt that as the book was under review, it wasn't appropriate for the visit to continue.  As per district policy, the books will remain in the school library until a decision is made.

I rather think he should have treated her visit the same way -- until a decision is made, the book stays on the shelves, so it follows (in my mind) that her visit should have continued as planned as well, and according to him, the district policy states that parents can exclude their children from events, so it isn't like there wasn't already an out for the parents who are uncomfortable with the book -- but it's always easy to be a backseat driver in situations like this.

Anyway, I'm glad that Karin Perry (the librarian) was able to schedule an off-campus event -- regardless of what happens at the school, Ellen Hopkins will speak at the Hillsboro Free Baptist College at 7:30 tonight.

____________________________________________________________________

Previously:

Just in time for Banned Books Week...

...Ellen Hopkins' planned visit to an OK middle school has been canceled due to a complaint from one parent.

Oh, and also?  Her books were pulled from the school library.

From her LiveJournal:

Because the school superintendent not only pulled the books for review, he CANCELED my author visit. Wouldn't even allow me to move to the high school. Seriously? What did that parent and he expect me to do? Go in with a live demonstration? Use the f-word? Talk about sex? I mean, you've got to be kidding. I've done hundreds of school visits. Pretty positive I've never corrupted a student. In fact, my talks inspire them. Arm them. Inform them.

(via LISNews)

From the interview:

What's the greatest threat to poetry today?

Comprehension questions in schools. Kids don't get the chance to get up and perform poetry, and enjoy it, because they're too busy counting adjectives and spotting metaphors.

Has poetry not always been taught like that?  (I'm asking seriously, not sarcastically.  I really would like to know.  I don't know anything about the history of poetry education.)

From the interview:

What's the greatest threat to poetry today?

Comprehension questions in schools. Kids don't get the chance to get up and perform poetry, and enjoy it, because they're too busy counting adjectives and spotting metaphors.

Has poetry not always been taught like that?  (I'm asking seriously, not sarcastically.  I really would like to know.  I don't know anything about the history of poetry education.)

Head over to Wild Rose Reader -- she's got some excellent roundups:

Week Two
Week Three

Head over to Wild Rose Reader -- she's got some excellent roundups:

Week Two
Week Three

...I really want to read this book.

I love it.

(discovered via Kristopher's excellent post on writing scams at Guys Lit Wire)

After the sudden death of Jackson, the boy she thought she'd spend the rest of her life with, Ava realizes that he isn't really gone.  He's with her.  Not just in her heart or in her memory or some other platitude-sounding version of "with her".  No, he's actually there.  In her house:

As I stand in the bathroom,
carefully lining my eyelids
bronze,
I feel a splash
of cool air.

I shiver.

I feel something.
Something behind me.
Something familiar.
Hauntingly familiar.

I glance behind me,
but I don't see
anything.
Or anyone.

And then,
when I look in the mirror
again,
I see,
for just a split second,
not just me,
but someone else.

Jackson.

What follows is kind of the YA verse novel version of Truly, Madly, Deeply, minus Alan Rickman's amazingly obnoxious ghost buddies.  Ava and Jackson both need to let go -- Ava of Jacksonand of her own guilt about his death, and Jackson, more simply, of Ava. 

Ava needs to find a way to embrace life again.  But how is that possible when her dead boyfriend comes to her every night in her dreams?

For the most part, I enjoyed I Heart You.  It didn't hold any surprises, and it occasionally felt VERY Stereotypical Teenage Girl Poet*, but the lack of surprises didn't particularly bother me and the STGP aspect makes sense as the narrator is, um, a teenage girl.

_______________________________________________________________

*Remember the Veronica Mars episode where she infiltrated what she thought was a cult by writing Angsty Poetry with a purple pen?  Yeah, poetry like that.

Scroll down to listen to 'Quaaludes Again'.

Album here and here.

(Thanks to Fuse for the link!)

This is extremely cool, but it would be ever so much more so if we could play with it.

(via Bookslut)

One question I often field in my capacity as OUP’s editor for American dictionaries is, “What’s the longest word in the dictionary?” I don’t hear it as often as “How do I get a new word in the dictionary?” but it still comes up from time to time. My stock answer isn’t very interesting: “It depends on what counts as a ‘word,’ and it depends on the dictionary.” That answer doesn’t satisfy most people, since the follow-up question is typically something like, “No, really, is it antidisestablishmentarianism or supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?” Those two specimens are the “usual suspects” that get hauled out in discussions of the longest word in English, perhaps because most of us have been familiar with them since grade school. But there are many other worthy candidates for the “longest word” mantle.

(more…)

Share This