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

Banned Books Week Day 5: You Can't...

As some of you have gathered from some of the posts I've made here, I really enjoyed making displays for the libraries I've worked for.  Banned Books week was kind of like Christmas - we started planning Banned Books Weeks displays months out.

The first year that I worked at Kennesaw State University, we were doing a "caution tape" them (common for Banned Books Week) with "graffiti" in the student computer lab.  Being relatively new in that position, I hadn't been sure what my role would be in helping with or planning that display, so I sort of followed some of the ideas that had been done the previous year, when we got to actually implementing. 

One of the new things I did do that year was to put together some "you can't" reading lists.  We printed them out on brightly-colored paper and put them on a table at the entrance to the computer lab.  These lists included "You can't write that" (frequently challenged authors), "You can't read that" (frequently challenged classics), and "You can't say that" (books frequently challenged due to language - profanity, racist, and/or sexual language).  "You can't read that" was our most popular list, with almost twice as many copies taken as the other two lists combined.

You can see the lists and some of our "graffiti" below.

#BannedBooksWeek2020

Banned Books Week Day 2: The Russians Are Coming!

Here we have some Banned Book overachievers! Not only were many classic and well-though-of Russian authors challenged or banned in their own time and/or country, but some (like Nabokov and Pasternak) were or are controversial in the U.S., too.

For a healthy dose of two of my favorite things - Pushkin and Banned Books displays, see my Russian authors Banned Books Week display from when I worked at the Kennesaw State University Library system in 2016:

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

Also, fun fact, Nabokov’s translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin was considered the pre-eminent translation for many years.

#BannedBooksWeek2020

Brush Up On Ye Nautical Knowledge!

Arrgh, Mateys!

Today be Int-ARR-national Talk Like a Pirate Day, and ye scurvy dogs be in for a treasure.

Behold! Here be library displays!

(I made the below as a display for, yes, you guessed it, International Talk Like a Pirate Day when I worked for the library at Kennesaw State University.)

(Forgive the formatting - that’s what happens when you transfer a 4 year old file between computers multiple times…)