Banned Books Week Day 6*: Burn, Baby, Burn

*If you feel like you're missing a day, yesterday I did a Throwback Thursday with my review of Out of Darkness.

Ray Bradbury, writing Fahrenheit 451: You shouldn't ban books.

1950's parents: Let's ban this book!

That seems to be how it goes, doesn't it?

As some of you know, last year I challenged myself to read a classic banned book that I hadn't read before, and review it for banned books week. I decided to do the same this year and, due in large part to nearly unanimous response from my readers, I read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. (F-451, from here on out because I'm lazy.)

I wasn't sure what to expect going into it. I read it without looking up why it had been challenged. I had attempted to read a collection of his short stories a while ago and had not been impressed.

I was very pleasantly surprised with F-451. The language was BEAUTIFUL. The book was written by someone who obviously loved words, about someone who would come to better appreciate words. I haven't read a book with language like that since The Book Thief.

The world was also very well created - it felt very Twilight Zone-y, and I mean that in the best possible way. Of course, it didn't long pre-date the show, and Bradbury's work was used in an episode (and I think also inspired others). For me, there was a very clear atmosphere and color scheme.

What struck me the most, though, was how well a story written in 1953 captured the ennui and lack of attention span of 2022. In F-451, the main character's wife has speakers called seashells that she wears in her ears constantly - they are described as being silver and thimble-sized. She is constantly listening to radio shows, constantly watching her "parlor family," the unending broadcast of TV on the three walls of a room in their house. And that's not enough - she wants to be so immersed in the fictional television world that she asks Guy to buy her a fourth TV wall, even though it would cost about a third of his annual salary.

Honestly, the above is even just a small sample of how far gone most of society has gotten. They listen to their seashells and watch their parlor families unceasingly. The neighbor girl relates how she's constantly losing friends to car crashes - in this society people are so aching for stimulation that they speed and crash as casually as my husband might play a video game.

Of course, the one way in which the population of this world is not allowed to find stimulation is through reading. Books are illegal. Possession of even one will get you arrested. Neighbors report neighbors and the firemen come to burn not only the books but the perpetrator's home.

Guy is one of these firemen, but things take a turn for him in part because of his observant young neighbor's joie de vivre and because a woman's whose book collection they were about to burn gets the jump on Guy and his colleagues and sets both the books and herself on fire in a final desperate attempt to take at least that small act from them.

Guy finally comes to understand that he no longer believes in burning books, that he hates this world he lives in where no one sees, no one feels, no one connects. He starts saving books, but of course is found out. Long story short, he escapes the city and joins a group of "hobos" - who turn out to be "retired*" professors and a minister. They promise to teach Guy a technique they developed to remember the entirety of any book they've ever read. These men are the new library; they promise to pass down their collective knowledge until the world is ready for the books to return.

*Most are strongly hinted to have been driven out of their professions.

Not finding anything too bothersome in the book, I looked up the reasons it was challenged after I was done. Of course, profanity (as always) was at the top of the list... and yeah, maybe for the 1950's it might have been a tad strong, but it wasn't constant, and I feel like there wasn't much worse in there than "damn." Violence was also a complaint, as was a description of the Bible being burnt. (But, wasn't that the point? That Bradbury was CONDEMNING violence and book burning, not condoning them?) Other complaints included mentions of both suicide and abortion. Granted, once again, these came off as very tame to my 21st century sensibilities. The attempted suicide is accompanied by blase technicians who pump the would-be victim's stomach with less interest than a mechanic repairing a car. Abortion is mentioned in passing as Guy hurls accusations of unfeelingness at his wife's friends, one of whom who has had multiple divorces and abortions. And, let's be perfectly honest - a lot of those complaints would either go over younger teens' heads, or be completely unimpressive to older teens today.

All in all though, a really great book. Try reading it instead of burning it.

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Special Throwback Thursday: The Baldur Blogs

A day late for National Puppy Day, but oh, well...

Since I alternate weeks, this will be my last Throwback Thursday before the anniversary of Baldur's death on April 3. I was debating whether or not to share some of my posts about him - some are light-hearted and some are sad. But yesterday, I had a really bad headache (weather and allergies) and I lay down to take a nap for a while. At one point, I heard Athena chewing on her feet... except that when I woke up and sat up to pet her, she wasn't in the bed. She hadn't come upstairs.

Now, is it possible I was hearing things? Yes. Is it possible I was dreaming? Of course. But there's a belief that when you dream of the dearly departed it means they have come to visit you - and it would be so in character for our sweet boy to come check on me when I felt bad.

So here I have collected a series of tales of Baldur the Beautiful, Baldur Spleen-Slayer. Come keep his memory alive with me.

One of the best days of my life was when this boy picked me out and said in his sweet, sad-Corgi-face way, "I want you to be my Mommy."

Jason and I came back to pick up our boy and to hear what the vet had found. It wasn't good.

We are preparing for the death of our first fur baby at the same time as we are preparing for the birth of our first human baby.

Remember when Notre Dame Cathedral caught on fire? Shouldn't that have been The Story of the Decade?

We started blaming things on Baldur’s ghost.

It's a place of honor, and place where he can keep an eye on his baby sister. And the thing is... we think he does.

Some days it helps to remember my sweet fuzzies.

Elianna still has her brother to comfort her.

Imagine a Great Dane the size of a small horse looking down at this coffee table sized dog with a confused, "Do I know you?" expression.

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Follow me on Facebook and Twitter for several small snippets each week.

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Out of Darkness, Out of the Library

I posted a brief little tidbit about this on my Facebook page a week or two before Banned Books Week. There was a school board meeting in Texas (because they always seem to be in Texas) where a mom went on and on about Out of Darkness, a book in the school library that had a reference to anal sex. The rant went viral, and multiple schools in the district ended up pulling the book off shelves. (For those of you keeping track at home, that means the book was successfully banned.)

It is worth noting that, like many controversial Young Adult Books, Out of Darkness is a Printz Honor book.

Recently, I was contacted by the publicist for Ashley Hope Perez, the author of Out of Darkness, asking if I'd be willing to write a blog post about Perez's response to the controversy. She sent me a YouTube video and I have to say, I love the author's attitude - a perfect blend of snark and passion.

Having watched the video and looked into the book a little more, I now plan to read it. Who's with me?

See more about Ashley and her works here.

High-Stakes Secrets

Psst... Can you keep a secret?

Recently I've been consuming media about secrets - what a character will do to keep a secret, what happens when a secret gets out...

Jason and I recently watched There's Someone Inside Your House. It's a horror movie about a killer making his way through high school students with secrets. At one point, one of the characters throws what he calls a "secret" party. The attendees are encouraged to share their secrets, the idea being that if your secret is out, the killer no longer has a hold over you. These being high schoolers, the secrets range from crushes to miscarriages. Though as you might expect, not everyone confesses the Real Secret, the Big Secret, the High-Stakes Secret, and people keep dying.

I also recently finished reading Speak, a book about a high schooler keeping a secret that takes such a toll on her that she pretty much stops speaking all-together. Read more about that here.

It made me start thinking about my stories. What secrets do my characters have? What secrets do they consider to be high-stakes? When I was in high school my Big Secret was who I had a crush on, which seems so stupid now. But it's a matter of perspective. Sometimes it's a matter of culture or your place in society, too. A secret that is a big deal for a character in one story, in one world, may be laughable to worry about in another story and world.

I have neglected my characters' secrets. I don't even know what secrets some of my characters have. I need to go through my stories (and especially Brinyor, now that I've decided to workshop it some) and figure out what people's secrets are.

Book Review: The Terror by Dan Simmons

A couple years ago, AMC produced a TV series based on this book. Jason and I really enjoyed it, and I decided I wanted to read it. I had kind of forgotten about it until reading Fatal Passage by Ken McGoogan, about John Rae, the explorer who discovered what happened to the Terror and Erebus.

It was a long read (over 700 pages), but very enjoyable. Even knowing what happens, I found myself wanting to keep reading each night, wanting to keep pushing past when I should have lain down and gone to bed.

Brief overview:

In 1845, an expedition lead by Sir John Franklin sets out from England to discover the long-searched-for Northwest Passage - a water route between the Northern Atlantic and Northern Pacific oceans. The Franklin expedition - 129 men and two ships, the Erebus and the Terror - never returns and there are no confirmed survivors. This is an imagining of the horrors the crew encountered while marooned in the Arctic, including extreme winter weather, scurvy, tainted food stores, impossibly difficult physical labor, the hubris of their captain, rats, fire, and, last but not least, a monster resembling a huge polar bear that stalks the mission.

The first part of the book is told in flashbacks. It opens with now-Captain Crozier on deck, in the bone-shattering cold, giving kind of a "how we got here" overview in his head. The chapters then go back and forth for a while between a few characters - Captain Sir John Franklin, Dr. Goodsir, and others - give background on events leading up to Crozier's current situation.

Goodsir serves as kind of an everyman - an audience avatar - when he volunteers to go on an exploratory mission and fails miserably at keeping up with the hard work the other sailors endure, as well as expressing shock at Captain Franklin's callous disregard for the life of the native man his men shot by accident.

Franklin immediately establishes himself as the one who carries the blame for various failures. At a dinner party, a seasoned explorer expresses concerns that Sir John doesn't have enough supplies - of food or coal. Franklin has no clue how much he's actually bringing with him; he feels like this is someone else's job to figure out. He just smiles and nods while the other explorer grows obviously more concerned about this voyage. Franklin comes off as a hubristic idiot. Actually, calling him an idiot isn't fair - he seems to be doing it on purpose. He repeatedly ignores sound advice from Crozier - his second in command - other explorers, and various officers on his mission. There are so many things that just would not have gone wrong if he had just listened to other people... but, no, determined to rid himself of his reputation as "the man who ate his shoes" on his previous Arctic mission, he plows ahead, so certain of his own infallibility.

As mentioned above, Sir John often expresses the thought that the natives are somehow less - not worthy of saving from death, not worthy of a proper burial... In the book, many other characters also express this period-accurate disdain for the Arctic peoples they encounter. (In the show, this is toned down, with some of the characters seeming to be pro-native, and even speaking some of the Inuit language.) As was also par for the period, there's a decent amount of disdain for women, Irish characters, characters of non-noble birth, and homosexuals (exclusively referred to as "sodomites").

While the setting is bleak, and often gory, and even the most likeable characters flawed, you do find yourself rooting for most of them, hoping that at least SOME of them make it.

I've read some other reviews and opinions that the last few chapters and the fates of a couple of characters comes out of nowhere, but I didn't think so. I thought it was the sort of thing where everything these two had experienced, everything they had endured together came together to form only one possible, inevitable scenario. Want to know more?

Here be spoilers...

In the show, Captain Crozier and Lady Silence - the native woman who's father was accidentally shot by the crew - end up being the only survivors. He's taken in by her people, but their connection ends there (or at least is no more special than them both being part of a very small, close-knit community). In the book, she rescues him when he's shot multiple times by mutineers, and nurses him back to health over a period of several months. She teaches him to live like a native. They share dreams - as they began to do when Crozier suffered from severe alcohol withdrawal earlier in the book. Eventually, she takes him to be her husband. I do mean that - Lady Silence/Silna is the one who initiates a physical relationship with Crozier, though by that point he understands that they also have an intertwined fate. Their interractions in the last couple chapters seem less to me "out of nowhere" and more what happens when two people have been through so much trauma together that they come to realize that each of them is the only person who could understand the other. It's not romantic, per se, but it's fitting.

And, yes, people have complained about the age difference. Crozier is in his early 50's by the end of the book, whereas when the expedition encountered Lady Silence two years earlier, the doctor determined she was between 15 and 20 (much younger than in the TV adaptation). Yes, this is a shocking age difference by today's standards... but in the 1840's it was not. Indeed, Crozier had proposed about five years earlier to a woman in her early 20's who turned him down not for his age, but for his station (she claimed she couldn't be a mere captain's wife). Girls in their teens were married to men old enough to be their grandfathers all the time back then. For me, what sells it is that Silna knows exactly what she is doing and it is Crozier who seems surprised at first, as well as their ironclad devotion to each other through the remainder of the book. Each is willing to give up their world and follow their spouse; Crozier is the one who gives up his old life to be with Silna.

Really the only thing I found to be problematic in the book is the outdoor New Year's carnivale. For so much of the book, the author has been hammering into us what the extreme cold is like for the crew. The (heated) intterior of the boat is only just barely above freezing on the warmest decks. The crew are wearing layers upon layers. They are constantly losing toes. The men on watch on the deck have to constantly move, constantly stomp to keep from freezing. More than once someone accidentally touches metal and loses skin for their carelessness. And yet at the Carnivale, where we are told it is a whopping -100 degrees, men stay out wandering around, eating outside, hanging out in a tent labyrinth, wearing costumes either over or under their cold weather gear... for hours! It just seemed glaringly out of place to me.

I did think it was interesting that at one point a crew member references the wreck of the Essex, an American whaling ship sunk during an encounter with an enraged whale, marooning its crew in life boats in the tropical Pacific. It reminded me that I had also read a book about that incident a few years ago. I'll have to do a compare/contrast of the two.

It occurred to me recently that I should include Readers' Advisory at the end of reviews. This is a book for both fans of history, and fans of horror. In particular, if you like setting-based suspense and horror - something like Sphere, where you're trapped by the elements with a dangerous and unknowable presence. For the history fans, if you like The Terror, you might also enjoy In the Heart of the Sea, by Nathaniel Philbrick, and Fatal Passage by Ken McGoogan.

Throwback Thursday - In the Heart of the Sea

So, I'm doing something a little different for Throwback Thursday this week.

The blog post I want to revisit is from my former website. I had planned to eventually set up an archive page here, but as you can guess, I have not yet gotten around to it. That post will be under the second markdown, below. The first markdown is a little snippet I posted on my Facebook page five years ago (five years ago, Oh my god...) about watching the film that was based on the book I review below. Now I'll have all of this in one spot!

Mid-July 2016, Jason and I watched the film In the Heart of the Sea, and really enjoyed it. My response to it is here:

From Facebook post, July 17, 2016

As a librarian and a writer, there are some classics out there that I am kind of embarrassed to admit that I haven't read. One of these is Moby Dick. I recently watched In the Heart of the Sea. It's a movie based on a book of the same name about Herman Melville speaking to one of the few survivors of a whaling ship that was attacked by a huge whale (and served as his inspriation for Moby Dick). It's a very good movie, which makes me sad that it didn't do better. Plus, as an actor, I also now have a TON of respect for the actors portraying the stranded whalers who lost tons of weight to look like they had been lost at sea for months; Chris Hemsworth lost 35 pounds, and Cillian Murphy looks like he was mummified.

After we finished the movie, I turned to my boyfriend and said, "Huh, that was really good - I'd like to read it." He responded, "yeah, I never read it either." I then clarfied that I was NOT talking about Moby Dick, but rather the book the film was based on.

For some reason, Melville is one of those authors people kind of cringe away from. No one picks up Melville for fun, just like no one picks up Dickens for fun. It's sad to say, but I'm just as guilty of this as the general population. As much as I love a rich vocabulary, some of those Victorian authors intimidate me.

But I guess that's ok, because Melville himself (at least according to the movie) is intimidated by Hawthorne. Which makes one of the closing screens, a quote by Hawthorne about how Moby Dick is the Great American Epic, all the more touching.

I liked it so much that I turned around and checked out the book from the library. I apparently finished it quite fast (oh, those pre-baby days!) as I posted the below review two weeks later:

Adapting from Page to Screen

Sometimes when having watched a movie and then read a book, I can say to myself, "Ok, I see why they changed that."

Sometimes it's a case of condensing a timeline or characters so as to make something easier to follow. Sometimes it's making characters older, younger, or changing something about their looks or personality to make them either more believable or more accessible to a broader audience. Sometimes it's adding "drama" (a problem that wasn't there in the original version to up the tension) or changing or leaving out something that the characters did to make them more relatable or sympathetic.

You may remember from my Ivey Ink Facebook post of July 17 that I recently watched In the Heart of the Sea. This is a movie based off a book that was written about a historical whaling ship disaster. The book was based on the accounts of several survivors of the Essex (a whaling ship); their stories also were a big influence on Herman Melville writing Moby Dick.

I enjoyed the film, and I found the book fascinating as well. However, upon reading the book, there were several very obvious, "wow, I see why they changed this for the movie" details. First of all, without some changes just for sake of narrative and the flow of plot structure, it would simply be a documentary that no one would watch unless they were interested in 19th century whaling and shipwrecks.

One of the major changes was the dynamic between First Mate Chase and Captain Pollard. In the film, Chase and Pollard do not get along, as Chase feels he was passed over for the position of captain simply because Pollard's father is a captain and one of the owners of the whaling company. In real life, Chase was several years younger than Pollard and they had been working their way up the ranks together for the last four years; Pollard had been First Mate previously and prior to that had been Second Mate, while Chase had previously been Second Mate and prior to that Harpooner. But which movie would you rather see:

"An orphaned farm boy* (played by the studly Chris Hemsworth) has worked hard to prove himself to The Man as capable sailor and has been promised a captaincy. However, at the last minute, he is passed over for promotion in favor of the boss's son (played by the brooding Benjamin Walker). Now they must struggle to scratch out a living from the violent sea with the forces of nature stacked against them." or "A tall 22-year-old and his pudgy@@ 28-year-old coworker of four years receive promotions and head out to hunt whales."

*And by the way Chase's father was still alive, and living in an expensive house in town, at the time of the voyage. @@Yes, Pollard is almost consistanly referred to as "portly" in the book. (Maybe this is repeatedly pointed out to help explain why he was one of the few who survived. He had more excess weight that could be lost without major inconvenience.)

However, like I said, injecting some drama for sake of narrative is understandable. Another major change (or, rather, omission) is even more understandable.

I don't know what you know about whaling. I didn't know a lot before I read this book. The movie shows a whale being hunted and killed (and only one hunt is shown to completion in the film, when there would have been HUNDREDS during the actual voyage of the Essex). It shows a couple brief scenes to get the point accross - a whale being harpooned, a spray of blood landing on the faces of the whalers as the whale dies (we do NOT see the blood actually spraying out of the whale itself), and a few short shots of the whale being butchered. We are also treated to a scene of the cabin boy being lowered into a hole in the whale's head to scoop out the last of the oil. He serves as something of a bridge between the characters and the audience, as his obvious horror and disgust at this task is more along the lines of what people who grew up learning about environmentalism and animal rights would feel.

These scenes in the movie really gloss over the realities of whaling that are gone into in more depth in the book.

As I mentioned above, a whaling voyage that lasted two years (as most of them did) and returned to port with 1,500-3,000 casks of whale oil would have had to kill hundreds of whales to fill their quota. I had been under the impression that, like the plucky homesteader of a slightly later period, the whalers used all of the animal - sell the bones and teeth for furniture and jewelry, eat and/or salt down the meat to sell, do...I dunno, something with the skin. No. The oil and blubber are the only parts of the whale used and the rest is DUMPED INTO THE OCEAN. The book describes the Pacific as being just a slick of oil, blood, and decomposing whale during a large part of the 19th century.

From a contemporary perspective, it's disturbing. What makes it even more jarring is that in the book the scene of the full hunt and butchery of the whale comes either immediately before or immediately after a scene in which the sailors complain to the captain about their small portions of rationed salt beef and salt pork. You people are throwing away dozens of tons of meat every few days and you don't think to keep any of this to augment your rations?

What makes it even worse than that, though, is that on their way to the whaling grounds of the Pacific the ship stops at the Galapagos islands so that they can hunt tortoises to bring on the voyage as food. The tortoises were preferred to any other live source of meat because their metabolisms were so slow that the crew didn't have to feed them. The ship takes on dozens, possibly hundreds, of tortoises, fully intending to just leave them in the hold and not give them food or water. Ever. Until it's time to kill and eat them. The cabin boy's memoir reflects his misgivings about the assumption that just just because the tortoises didn't NEED to eat didn't mean that they SHOULDN'T, as he claims that every time he went down into the hold he saw them licking things.

If these weren't bad enough crimes against nature, one of the crew members set one of the Galapagos islands on fire. As a prank.

It's scenes like these that make it extremely difficult to think anything other than "I'm glad most of you died miserable deaths of starvation adrfit at sea - you're horrible people!" As I said, sometimes you have to change things in a story to make the characters relatable on screen. Even without these scenes shown in the movie, it's hard not to root for the whale when he attacks the Essex after the whalers harpoon another whale in his pod.

But, as my sister is fond of saying, "why ruin a perfectly good story with something like facts?"

Wa-wa - Wow!

A few months ago, I wrote a post about Elianna's linguistic abilities and about how she was approaching the age that Helen Keller was when she lost her sight and hearing. Read that whole post here: https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2020/10/25/words-words-wa-wa

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, partly because Elianna's word usage and attempts have really skyrocketed over the past few weeks. She now regularly says "wa" or "wawa" when she wants her water cup. She even says "wow!" a lot.

But what is really cool, and also ties back to the Helen Keller story, is that she's now attempting some of our hand signals we use for Athena (aside from just waving at her). She tries a thumbs up for "good girl" but makes a finger gun instead. She tries "I love you," but looks like she's flashing gang signs. But she's working on communicating and now, on the eve of 19 months, I am so proud of my little girl and still so glad that a simple childhood fever can be treated rather that stealing her from me.

“I love you” in sign language.

“I love you” in sign language.

Missing the Magic

Fall is in the air.  Unfortunately, so are other things...

There are, sadly, a lot of kids missing out on their fall and Halloween traditions this year (yes, and their parents, too 'cause parents love Halloween). I've seen lots of posts from friends about how they're modifying fall traditions for their kids and grandkids.  Some are trying to figure out social-distanced trick-or-treating, others are swapping private hayrides for group excursions.

Jason and I briefly considered taking Elianna to a pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin... but then I saw that the CDC was calling that a moderate risk activity, even outside with masks required.  Given that we live in an area where there has been a lot of push-back against masks, we decided not to bother.

I was taking Elianna for a walk in the stroller a few days ago - it was the first time we'd been out and about since a lot of people had put up Halloween decorations.  I came to the end of our street and saw that the hedge out in front of one house was decked out with about a dozen friendly scarecrows.  I thought to myself how much fun she's going to have once she's old enough to go to fall festivals, fondly recalling the school festivals my sister and I went to at our elementary school: mazes, pony rides, and haunted houses with spaghetti brains you could touch. 

And I know she's too young this year.  I know she won't know what she's missing out on, and wouldn't remember trick-or-treating or picking out a pumpkin anyway.  I take comfort in that.  But I miss it.  And I know how many of my friends and/or their kids are, too.  But I think the kids will be OK.  I think the kids will still find ways to see the magic.

I talk about how kids can find the magic this time of year so easily in a re-post from last year ( https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2019/10/19/memories-and-magic ), but here's that specific section:

“The things I remember most about Halloween as a kid, was the feeling that anything could happen.  Those chilly, cloudy nights out walking through the dark neighborhood, I would look up at the sky and see faint ghosts in swirling patterns.  Most other nights I knew that wasn't a ghost, but rather a search light from a concert or a car lot.  But on Halloween, it was a ghost.  On Halloween, that empty house down the street might really be haunted.  On Halloween that neighbor that likes to dress up like a scarecrow and sit on the front porch to startle trick-or-treaters might actually be an evil scarecrow come to life that would come get you. 

Certain nights hold magic.  Halloween is one of them.  Christmas is another.  On Christmas as a kid, that flashing red light in the sky isn't a plane - it's Rudolph.  The fireplace making a thump isn't the flue cooling off and contracting - it's Santa.  And I really believed for many years that if I sprinkled glitter on the Christmas tree and the nutcracker collection that one of these days they would magically transform and take me to a magical land...  I believed this probably 'til I was way older than I should have.

But my point is, there is something very magical about Fall.  (Yes, I know Christmas Day itself is about 4 days into Winter, but most of that buildup, most of that magical transformation is in Fall.)  And there is something amazing about kids; they believe.  They want to believe.  They love to believe.  And that is awesome.”

I know a lot of us are disappointed, and a lot of us are concerned our kids will be, too.  But don't worry about the kids - they'll still believe in the magic.

Banned Book Week Day 7: Don't Judge a Book By its Challenge

One of the things that we frequently find to be the case with banned and challenged books is that people get up in arms about a book they haven’t read - “I heard that book is… Someone told me that book’s about…” But then it turns out that someone else you know and trust (maybe know and trust better than that friend-of-a-friend, or that rant on that Facebook group you’re a member of) has read the book and thinks it’s fine - great, even.

In some ways, I find that similar to certain dog breeds that have a stigma or reputation for being aggressive… but then it turns out someone you know and trust has a big, goofy, loveable 80 pound lap dog who wouldn’t hurt a fly (well, maybe lick them to death…).

So what do you do? You expand your horizons. You do your research. You visit that dog shelter or check out a copy of that banned book. And you find a new friend.

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2019/9/25/banned-books-displays-i-have-loved-part-1

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2019/9/28/the-challenge-doesnt-end-today

Azkaban.jpg
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Banned Books Week Day 6: Too Young for Discussion?

While looking over the list of most challenged books of 2019, I saw that one book was on the list for the reason that "schools and libraries should not ‘put books in a child’s hand that require discussion.’”

But if we’re not allowing discussion, what’s the point of school?

When is a child too young to discuss troubling, disturbing, or even just “different” subject matter?

Read more of my thoughts on the subject here:

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2018/9/28/unsuited-to-age-group

#BannedBooksWeek2020

Library Displays I Have Loved, Part 3

One of the things I miss about working in a library is making displays.  I first started making displays when I worked in the Georgia Room, Cobb County Public Library's special collection for genealogy; family, local, and state history; and Georgia authors.  These displays started out very simply - a sign with a few clip art flowers advertising books on local plants in the spring, a short list of Georgia authors whose birthdays were in a given month.

I worked in the Georgia Room sporadically at first, and then for all of my part-time shifts.  As I spent more time there, I got more creative with the displays.  Eventually, I got a full time position in the children's department of another library in the county - one of the things they were looking for was someone to make displays.  I also ended up being one of two display makers at the Marietta campus library of KSU.  

Of course, as the years had gone on my displays got more in depth, requiring more work and more research.  I loved using them as an opportunity to tell a "story" - to take a theme or an event and either find relevant books (sometimes using very loose interpretations of a theme) or to highlight facts and trivia.

One of my favorite display ideas (though, as one of my early ones, definitely not one of the best finished products) was my Ides of April display, highlighting various disasters and serious events that happened in the middle of April.  Enjoy - and be careful out there!

If you’re interested in some of my later (better) displays, you can also check these out: https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2019/9/25/banned-books-displays-i-have-loved-part-1

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2019/9/26/banned-books-displays-i-have-loved-part-2

ides of april part 1.jpg
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Memories and Magic

Hello, readers! As I mentioned a few weeks ago, posts will continue to be sporadic for a while as I get used to the routine (or lack-there-of) of being a new mom.

For the meantime, though, please enjoy a re-posting of a blog I wrote right around this time 3 years ago:

How many of you remember what you went as for Halloween when you were kids? How many different years' costumes can you name? I'm going to make a go for ALL of them (at least up to senior year in high school).

2 years old - Smurfette

3 - Minie Mouse

4 - Cinderella

5 - Dorothy

6 - a bride

7 - an Amish girl

8- black cat

9 - black cat again. I don't remember why I was a black cat 2 years in a row, but it was the closest to "something scary" my mom would let me be until I was older.

10 - gypsy

11 - a vampire! Finally!

12 or 13 - a butterfly. Whichever year I was a butterfly was the year it snowed. On Halloween. In metro Atlanta. The butterfly costume quickly turned into "Elizabeth in her green parka." Don't remember what I was the other year.

14 - Egyptian. I was quick to point out at the Drama club Halloween party that I was not Cleopatra, as I didn't consider her to be a "real" Egyptian due to her Greek ancestry (I was weird about stuff like that at that age). Not that I, as a re-headed Celto-Ukrainian have any business being picky about who's a "real" Egyptian...

15 - Spanish Renaissance Princess

16 - Salem Witch. I won the Drama club Halloween contest with this costume.

17 - Juliet. Not entirely dissimilar to age 15, but it was a different dress...

In all honesty, 15, 16, and 17 may not actually be in order. I went to the Drama Club Halloween party every year, and also chaperoned my younger sister and her best friend trick-or-treating.

I always tried to have a cool costume every year after that, working or not, going to a party or not. Some years in college I lucked out in that Halloween would fall in the middle of the week and the weekends on both sides ended up having some costume extravaganza to go to. Sometimes I had a costume for each party. But then, I was a theatre major and a costume nerd and could usually "throw something together" that was at least as good as something you could buy.

Halloween 2014 stands out as one of my favorite costume experiences. I was a children's librarian at the time, and I went as Elsa from Frozen. I tell you what, kids know exactly what you're doing if you have even the most vague representation of a costume. I had a platinum blonde wig that I had braided, and a vaguely blueish satin(ish) dress. And every kid (except one) who came into that children's department that day stopped in their tracks and said in whispered awe, "It's ELSA!" (The one kid who did not told his awed 6 year old sister, "That's not Elsa, that's just a grownup.") Oddly enough, this was the second Halloween I can remember that it snowed... Maybe I should be more careful with my costume selection.

But the things I remember most about Halloween as a kid, was the feeling that anything could happen. Those chilly, cloudy nights out walking through the dark neighborhood, I would look up at the sky and see faint ghosts in swirling patterns. Most other nights I knew that wasn't a ghost, but rather a search light from a concert or a car lot. But on Halloween, it was a ghost. On Halloween, that empty house down the street might really be haunted. On Halloween that neighbor that likes to dress up like a scarecrow and sit on the front porch to startle trick-or-treaters might actually be an evil scarecrow come to life that would come get you.

Certain nights hold magic. Halloween is one of them. Christmas is another. On Christmas as a kid, that flashing red light in the sky isn't a plane - it's Rudolph. The fireplace making a thump isn't the flue cooling off and contracting - it's Santa. And I really believed for many years that if I sprinkled glitter on the Christmas tree and the nutcracker collection that one of these days they would magically transform and take me to a magical land... I believed this probably 'til I was way older than I should have.

But my point is, there is something very magical about Fall. (Yes, I know Christmas Day itself is about 4 days into Winter, but most of that buildup, most of that magical transformation is in Fall.) And there is something amazing about kids; they believe. They want to believe. They love to believe. And that is awesome.

Please comment with your favorite Halloween memory, costume, or story, and share with someone who believes in the magic : )

The Challenge Doesn't End Today

Because I have a 9-week-old baby, I’ve spent a lot of time this Banned Books Week holding her and scrolling one-handed on the tablet or the phone. Sometimes I come across a Banned Books post or article from somewhere and I share it in my Facebook page. A few days ago, I shared a picture of one of my former coworkers posing mug-shot style with a Harry Potter book. She’s the director at a college library and they wrote up a funny little snipped about her having been “caught” reading banned books.

Normally, when I share someone else’s post like this, I offer a few words of why I find it interesting, provide context, etc. But, when posting one-handing, it’s a lot easier to just click “share” and not type anything. That’s what I did for this one. One of my friends commented along the lines of “Wait a minute, is banning books still a thing? What is this, the 1600’s?” I went back and explained what was going on in the picture.

Now I’m not sure if he genuinely misunderstood, or if he was being sarcastic himself and I didn’t catch it. But the answer to his question is, yes, this still is a thing. People are not getting thrown in jail over the books they read, of course, but there are still many, many attempts (some successful) to remove books from public access. Read more about that here:

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2018/9/29/speak-out-write-out-read-out

(You can tell I wrote the blog in the above link a few years ago, as I refer to not having kids and having plenty of time to read…)

Banned Books Week 2019

Hello, readers, welcome to Banned Books Week 2019.

While I will try to keep up my annual tradition of posting something each day this week, given our recent addition, I will be mostly re-posting from previous Banned Books Weeks in years past.

But, I will have something fun and new for you this week - some of my favorite Banned Books displays I’ve done in the past.

But for today, please enjoy my first Banned Books Week post from last year:

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2018/9/23/banned-books-week-background

What I Got Done in June

Well, as many of you noticed, I did not post my July plans (more on that in my previous post: https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2019/7/3/irony ) at the end of June/beginning of July like I normally do.

My update of what I got done in June is... pretty much nothing. I wrote a few hundred words for Wolf and Sheath, and I've been working on "writing" a couple other stories in my head the past couple weeks. But with all the stuff we still have to do to get ready for the baby, I wasn't expecting to get a lot done (though, honestly, I was kinda of hoping to do a little more than I have).

My plans for July (now that we're already a week in and I've done nothing) are pretty much the same for June - do what I can, if I have time (which, again, may not be much).

I know that once she's born I most likely won't have the time or mental energy to work on anything for a few months. I submitted a flash fiction piece to a magazine a couple months ago and in my cover letter joked that flash fiction might be the only media whose scope lines up with my time since I'm expecting my first baby in August. I just found out this week the story didn't get accepted, so, while that's disappointing, that also opens up the ability to submit it elsewhere, as this magazine doesn't accept simultaneous submissions.

So, what else? I'd like to think that now that Jason and I should have all our baby prep nailed down within the next few days that maybe I'll find the time to work on stuff again... But I'm also to the point in the pregnancy where she really could come any time, and when she does all bets are off.

For the meantime, I will at least keep trying to do my weekly blog post and writerly quote... but if the next time I miss one or both, it's possible that means that we have a new arrival : )

It Never Fails

So, once again, I had to drive somewhere I'd never driven before and got lost. It really was not my fault this time - the road I was supposed to turn on had a completely different name than my directions. I figured it out in pretty short order, but still... It's like a superpower, except that it's not super at all.

More on my extremely "special" set of skills:

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2018/6/17/the-non-super-superheroes

And why does it always happen in summer?

A Scene from My Day: 07/01/2016

I went out on an excursion today. I had directions from Google maps, which stated that it should take me 41 minutes. It was a long drive, but most of it was going to be on the part of 92 that has a 55 mph speed limit, and the area of 75 where the speed limit is 70.

Fast forward about 35-40 minutes.

I took exit 296. The directions said turn left onto Cassville-White Road. Easy - look, there's a sign for it. Then I was looking for Brown Loop on the right. Hmm... Lots of little roads going off to the right. Didn't see a sign for Brown Loop. I did see a road on the right that did not have a sign. I wondered if that was it, but by that time had already passed it, so I kept going.

After I had gone a while (or what we in the South refer to as "up the road a-piece"), the road made 3 right angle turns in quick succession, and I came to a - gas station? - that made me think I had traveled back in time about 80 years, except that there was a shiny new Chevy Suburban parked outside instead of a shiny new Model T.

I should mention that I have inherited my mom's sense of direction. However, since I did not inherit either her tendency to panic when lost, or my dad's utter refusal to ask directions, I pulled over at said gas station/ice cream parlor (and town hall for all I know). First I asked the shaggy-headed teenager who was leaving if he knew where Brown Loop road was. He didn't. But, you know, when I was a teenager, I didn't know road names either. I asked two ladies inside. They'd never heard of it. I asked two more ladies who were in a truck outside. They didn't know where it was, either. Now, in their defense, this intersection looked like the sort of place where if it was more than a mile away it might as well have been on another planet.

Not to be deterred, I hopped back in my spaceship and went back the way I came. There had been a bigger gas station just after I got off the interstate, so I went back there (again, looking for Brown Loop the whole way).

I stopped in at the other gas station, not having seen Brown Loop (or Brown anything, except horses) but wondering again if that little signless road I had passed was where I needed to be going. I asked the lady behind the counter and she wasn't sure. I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to find this place, but the door tinkled as another customer came in and she called out to him.

"Hey, Hotrod!" "Yup?" "You pretty good with the roads 'round here?" "Yup!" "You know which road Brown Loop is?" "Hmm..."

Fortunately, one of Hotrod's buddy's followed him in. He was pretty sure that Brown Loop was "the road with the old wooden bridge." I must have made a funny face when he said this, because Counter Lady assured me that she knew what road we were talking about now and the bridge was perfectly safe. I said I was less concerned about the safety of the bridge and more concerned about finding it.

By now about 3 or 4 people who looked like they were related to Hotrod (and also to my friend, Lee), had gathered around and were of a pretty strong consensus that Brown Loop was "just past the KOA" and was, in fact, the road with The Old Wooden Bridge. Since Brown Loop was not my ultimate destination, I also asked if anyone was familiar with Shotgun Road. Oh, yes, they all knew Shotgun road - it was on the left, just past the now-famous Old Wooden Bridge.

So back in the car, armed with directions that included "just past the KOA" (whatever that was) and "just over the old wood bridge," I set out again. It turns out the KOA was a campsite with a very nice big red sign. The little no-sign road I had passed twice was just past the KOA, so I took a chance and turned down it. And I found myself very glad I drive a tiny little Mazda 2. I've seen grocery store aisles wider than this road. And over the first rise, I finally saw The Old Wooden Bridge. Again, I was thankful for my tiny car. There was a sign that said something about a weight limit for trucks over 6 wheels. I snorted - more like buggies over 6 wheels, I should think.

I very much expected to start passing signs saying things like "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" and "Hoover for President." And, just past the infamous bridge, there was a road on the left. With no sign. Taking a chance that this was the "just past the bridge" Shotgun road that I was looking for, I turned. I never did see any other indicator of road name, but I did find the address I was looking for. I guess if you have to ask for road names, "Y'ain't from around here."

Later, I made my way back, easily finding my route back to the highway. As I drove down the on-ramp back onto the interstate, the triumphant strains of Ride of the Valkyries swelled from the stereo, and I knew all was well.

Coming back home it too me exactly 41 minutes from driveway to driveway. Good job, Google maps.

It is the LAMEST super power.

What's in a Name: Act III

I was once at a workshop where the speaker talked about how it can be difficult to pick out names for your characters. "I know people who have taken longer to name their characters than their kids!" he proclaimed. There was a lot of laughter and understanding nods.

I have done a lot of name research in my life. I own two name etymology books. Each longer story that I'm working on has lists and index cards full of name research - meanings, root words, etc. So now that it has come time for Jason and me to choose a name for our baby girl, I already have a lot in my mind as to what I like, what I don't like, meanings, and connotations.

When you're writing fiction, the sound and symbolism of a name can be important, but you can also get away with more in fiction that you can in real life:

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2018/4/15/whats-in-a-name

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2017/7/16/whats-in-the-spelling-of-a-name

Like an old Celtic name that no one can spell? Books often come with a pronunciation guide; your child's kindergarten class doesn't. Authors take care not to name to many of their characters Jon or Rob (unless they're George R R Martin); Jason and I both have been in many classes or work settings where we have been one of two or more people with the same name. Think a name sounds really bad-ass? Well that's all well and good, but if you name your kid Leonidas, he's gonna end up dying in a battle. (One of my university's founders, General Leonidas Polk, died at the Battle of Kennesaw.)

It's a lot to think about. Unlike naming a character, where if you decide later that it's not working, you just change it before publication, there comes a point where you're out of time on deciding on a name. (It may come as a surprise, but unless you're Nora Roberts or James Patterson, the amount of time between sitting down to begin a story and having said book published in much longer than pregnancy.) Plus, usually, you're the only one naming the character in your book. Most people naming a child are working with another person to choose a name (it's fortunate the Jason and I have similar tastes).

Ladies of Language

So - the registrar, the head of the language department, and the registrar's admin assistant walk into a restaurant...

No, it's not the start of a joke. But it was the start of a very interesting dinner.

Last week, my boss and I went out to dinner with the head of the language department (who is also the head of the honors program). It wasn't really a work dinner, though we did occasionally kick around ideas about how various programs might be improved, or our experiences with similar programs in other places.

We ended up just sitting around and talking for a long time - in fact, my boss had to leave earlier so the other professor and I stayed and chatted for a while longer. It was really nice to be able to hang out with someone else who is "overly educated." I don't mean that as a slight against anyone I regularly spend time with, just that I don't often get the chance to discuss 19th century Russian poetry translation or Central American magic realism in depth.

We also got onto the subject of the novels that I'm writing and, and she sat and listened raptly while I described characters and plot. I think I've told her more about my writing than I've told any other one person in one sitting. At one point she asked what the title of my book was. I told her The Wolf and the Sheath, but also clarified that that was just the working title. I said that I probably wouldn't decide on a final title until after I finish the book, but at the moment I like The Lady, the Wolf, and the Watcher. She said she liked the rhythm of it. (I think that was what actually lead to the discussion of literature in translation.)

Tangentially related to the above, before my boss left, we sort of reprized the discussion my boss and I had a while back about why she doesn't like the term "ladies" to refer to a group of women. (More on that here: https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2018/1/7/ladies-gentlemen ) I clarified for the new member of our group, who hadn't been at our previous discussion, that "I read a lot of fantasy. I write a lot of fantasy. To me, a lady is someone who might strap on a sword and lead a battle." And, a twinkle in her eye, she responded, "That's not a lady - that's an empress."

Revenge of the Inability to Type!

If you've been following my blog for at least the last six months or so, you may remember a post I made last summer about a couple characters in a show Jason and I were watching who were thwarted by their lack of typing skills. https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2018/7/7/technology-and-time-period This show takes place in the 80's.

Recently, Jason and I have been watching Schooled, which takes place in "Nineteen Ninety-something." In the most recent episode, a young teacher enlists the mother of a friend of hers to be a cyber Cyrano for their pushover of a principal. The idea is that while the principal meets with a difficult parent that Mom will listen in and provide witty and scathing comebacks for him via AOL chat.

The problem is that Mom can't type. It takes her a full 30 second to deliver the message "I'm."

It kind of made me realize that even though these shows don't take place all that long ago, they're period pieces. It seems weird to think of a show set in a time period that I lived through as a period piece.