Lest we forget that book banning and free speech issues are conversational topics appropriate beyond the brackets of Banned Books Week, a recent news item has me lost for words. A federal appeals court has ruled, and this is true, that an Ohio high school teacher “has no First Amendment right to make assignments about book-banning or to select particular books for her students.” Come again? Well apparently a teacher decided to do an assignment on banned books with her class (of high school students, recall). So they each picked a book that had been banned. . . and then their parents found out. So because she was distributing racy literature like, oh say, Heather Has Two Mommies, the teacher’s contract was not renewed and she lost her appeal. You may read more about the case here. Thanks to Leslea Newman for the links.
- Now that’s interesting. I had not heard that Jacqueline Woodson’s novel Locomotion had been turned into a stage play. Once in a while a book to theater adaptation just makes perfect sense. This is one of those cases. I suppose verse novels make excellent adaptations. Huh! Food for thought.
- Funniest dang thing I’ve seen all day. Bar none.
- Feeling the absence of my Top 100 Novels poll results? Well, much of my information came from Anita Silvey. Now Anita turns it all around by starting a blog of her own. Called Book-A-Day Almanac, the premise is that she will recommend a children’s book every day for a year. At the end of the year, she’ll then turn those posts into a book. Shoot. That’s a good idea. Clearly I’ve got to get around to turning my own polls into books. Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.
I really like this habit I’ve gotten into, doing audible reviews of books for the Katie Davis podcast Brain Burps About Books. In a given year I can properly review only so many books. Katie’s site allows me to give some weight and consideration to I might otherwise have to ignore, like Kimberly Willis Holt’s gorgeous The Water Seeker. That’s this week’s review on Katie’s newest podcast
6 Comments on Fusenews: I speak for the trees . . . and oatmeal, last added: 11/1/2010
Daniel Radcliff is suffering from a severe lack of glasses!
Thanks for the links, esp. the P.L. Travers interview–wonderful. The non-Julie Andrews Mary Poppins is herself kind of hippy-dippy, certainly otherworldly, wry, dry, wise, and justifiably vain. Not really a spoonful of sugar kind of gal.
I *adore* Travers’ wonderfully vain and cranky Mary Poppins.
RE: the Daniel Radcliff READ poster: Material Management bought one for every library branch in our system. But we’re gonna put it in the Adult Department at our branch because of the book he is holding. It’s an Out-of-Print Adult fiction book, not owned by our library system, featuring the devil as the main character. (I bet many libraries will find that ’someone’ has improved the poster by drawing glasses onto his face.)
I followed your link and tried to figure out what books the rest of the Hogwarts crew were holding, but couldn’t. Does anybody know? (I’ll have to check my READ poster catalog — ALA Graphics — when I go back to work.
Call me weird, but I think the picture of the Lorax is cute — nice and fuzzy.
-wendieO
Re Daniel Radcliff looking strange… if by strange you mean sort of hot, then yes indeed!
WendieO….Rupert Gint is holding a copy of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Alan Rickman has a copy of Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger. I don’t recognize the cover art on the book Emma Watson is holding!
Daniel Radcliffe DOES look strange, like he’s glowing from within in a creepy sort of way. I hadn’t noticed he’s holding The Master and Margarita until Wendy pointed it out – it’s great to see a not-so-popular title on a Read poster. It’s bizarre and entertaining and strangely fantastic, although not a children’s book, of course.
The real Mary Poppins is one of my favorite fictional characters – vain and cranky is the perfect description.