Talking Book Services Patron Becomes Published Author

by Shellie Zeigler, Talking Book Services

Mississippi Talking Book Services patron Karen Brown has released a moving memoir through Mississippi's Nautilus Publishing Company. Sandpiper: My Journey with Sight and Blindness is about her progression from a slow loss of sight in her early 20s to complete blindness by age 30. Ms. Brown has strong roots here in the Jackson area. She lived in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Louisiana before making her way back to Mississippi for good. She became the director of the Addie McBryde Rehabilitation Center in 2002 and led that organization for seven years.

In her book, Ms. Brown shares the path her life took over the years: from marrying her husband in Germany, to raising their son, to having three different guide dogs, to teaching English in Florida. Karen's book should be categorized as an inspirational autobiography, if only for her strong faith in God and her optimistic attitude that helped guide her through the struggles she faced. Now a patron for 43 years, Ms. Brown stated that one of the first services she received as a visually impaired person was the Talking Book Services at the Mississippi Library Commission. She stated, "Reading has always been such a treasure for me. I never lost that. I started with the record players that the service provided." That service has changed over the years, but we still have the same goal: no one should ever lose the ability to read, regardless of any impairments. Sandpiper is currently being recorded as part of our ongoing effort to make books by Mississippi authors available to our Talking Book Services patrons.

Karen Brown will be giving a reading and book signing tomorrow, Friday, September 9, 2016, at Lemuria Books in Jackson, MS at 5 p.m. Her book can also be purchased at amazon.com.

Mississippi Book Festival Wrap-up

The second annual Mississippi Book Festival is in the books and, boy, was it a blast! The whole shebang kicked off at 9:30 with Newbery winning author Kate DiCamillo, who immediately opened the floor to questions.We loved her writing advice to prospective authors, which was, "The only wrong way to write a book is just to not sit down and do it."

The sanctuary at @gallowayumc is packed for Kate DiCamillo. #litlawnparty @msbookfest pic.twitter.com/xYnJKyEQbY

— MSLibrary Commission (@MSLibraryComm) August 20, 2016

There were a multitude things to do to fill the day between DiCamillo and the final panel at 5:30. It was definitely a day of hard decision making. How do you choose between seeing a panel with Ellen Gilchrist and one with Michael Farris Smith? Or Trent Lott and Jeff Zenter? Or even Julia Reed and Jesmyn Ward? If you were equally stumped, you can catch up on some of the events you may have missed. C-Span has some of the panels available to stream online:

Panel Discussion on Race
Panel Discussion on Education
Panel Discussion on Civil Rights History
Panel Discussion on Mississippi History
Panel Discussion on Civil Rights
Panel Discussion on Campaign 2016

There were a number of things to do outside of author panels and interviews. We spent some time meeting indie authors on Authors Alley. We also indulged and bought a few books from Lemuria Bookstore. Getting your favorite author's signature can be quite a rush!


Talking Book Services shared a booth with the Mississippi Center for the Book. TBS Director Shellie Zeigler declared this year's event even better than last year. She said she spoke with a record number of people about the service, even a few who didn't realize that they or their family members were eligible to receive the free service.

Vote for your favorite MS author and learn about Talking Book Services in the Rotunda! #litlawnparty @msbookfest pic.twitter.com/ukJ8V1ECaL

— MSLibrary Commission (@MSLibraryComm) August 20, 2016

Our 3D printer was a huge hit again this year. A continuous line of legislators, authors, students, librarians, grandparents, parents, and kids all stopped by our display area on the second floor to learn more about 3D printing from Library Development Director Joy Garretson.

Nonstop flow of people into room 204 to see our #3Dprinter demo at the @msbookfest #litlawnparty #msbookfest pic.twitter.com/LuRGxYtKvt

— MSLibrary Commission (@MSLibraryComm) August 20, 2016

If you had a ball at this year's festival, be sure to take a moment to reply to the Mississippi Book Festival's survey. Feedback will only improve next year's festival. By the way, you can go ahead and mark your calendars for that. The third annual Mississippi Book Festival is August 19, 2017.

We look forward to seeing you at next year's Literary Lawn Party, the hottest event of the year!

Plan Your Day at the Mississippi Book Festival

We've had the hardest time deciding who to see and what to do at the 2nd annual Mississippi Book Festival. There are so many great authors and panels this year, plus children's activities, book signings, book sales, and book related booths. How to narrow down all that goodness into just one day's worth of activities? After much agonizing, we came up with several possible #LiteraryLawnParty lineups from which to choose.

Of course, you may want to spend the day having old photos digitized by the Mississippi Digital Library... Or checking out the Mississippi Library Commission's 3D printer... Or collecting books and authors signatures on the south lawn. Click here for a complete printable list of activities; we wish you the best of luck planning your literary day. We'll see you at the Mississippi Book Festival!

Get Your Library On at the Mississippi Book Festival

The Mississippi Library Commission and its staff will be out in force during the second annual Mississippi Book Festival this Saturday, August 20, 2016. The Mississippi Center for the Book and Mississippi Talking Book Services will be exhibiting in the Rotunda. We have some fun activities prepared, like filling out Mississippi Mad Libs and picking up some cool schwag. You'll be also able to vote for your favorite Mississippi author and discover the secret to becoming the next great Mississippi author. As a special bonus, you can learn how those with visual or physical impairments can get audio books (by both Mississippi and other authors!) mailed to their homes free of charge.

Upstairs in room 204 (from 10 am-3 pm) you won't want to miss MLC's 3D printer on display. MLC's 3D printers travel to public schools and libraries to enhance STEM understanding. MLC will share space again this year with the Mississippi Digital Library, who will be digitizing photos for the public--for free! (That's just how they roll.) All they ask is that the photos be ready to be scanned (already out of their albums, etc...) There's a 30-minute limit on how much MDL can scan if there's a crowd.

"We had a great time participating in the book festival last year and are delighted to be back," says Tracy Carr, MLC's Library Services Director. "Our agency is in the business of books, so being a part of the Mississippi Book Festival is the right fit for us. We support their efforts one hundred percent."

We can't wait to see you Saturday at the Capitol. Until next time, happy reading!

Letters About Literature 2016

Nine students across Mississippi won awards in this year’s Mississippi Letters About Literature writing contest. Approximately 50,000 young readers across the country participated in this year’s Letters About Literature competition, a reading promotion program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. The Friends of Mississippi Libraries were a partner on the state level.

To enter, young readers write personal letters to authors, explaining how their work changed their view of the world or themselves. Readers can select authors from any genre—fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic. The contest theme encourages a young reader to explore his or her personal response to a book, then express that response in a creative, original way.

In Mississippi, approximately 500 students competed across all three competition levels; only 50 letters advanced to state semifinals. From those, 30 were selected to advance as state finalists for judging.

The Mississippi Library Commission hosted an awards ceremony and reception on April 29 to honor state semifinalists, finalists, and winners. After a welcome and remarks by Mississippi Center for the Book Coordinator Tracy Carr, the nine state winners were invited to read their letters aloud. The students then received their awards, and afterwards light refreshments were served.

The first place state finalist for competition Level I (grades 4 through 6) was Isyss Jones of Newton for her letter to Rachel Renee Russel. The first place state finalist for Level II (grades 7 and 8) was Kyran Williams-Roberts of Starkville, who wrote a letter to J.K. Rowling. Victoria Kinsey of Pontotoc was the first place state finalist for competition Level III (grades 9-12) for her letter to J.R.R. Tolkien. Mississippi first-place finalists each receive a $100 cash prize and their letters move on to the national competition.

State winner Victoria Kinsey’s letter also moved on to the national semifinals.

Other state winners include: Peyton Burton of Pass Christian (second place, Level I); Catherine Li of Starkville (second place, Level II); Denis Martinez of Ecru (second place, Level III); Darron Griffin II of Clarksdale (third place, Level I); Sophie Lanier of Pass Christian (third place, Level II); and Skyler Turner of Ecru (third place, Level III). Second-place winners receive a $75 cash prize and third-place winners receive a $50 cash prize. All state winners receive a medal inscribed with their name and ranking; all state semifinalists receive a certificate of achievement.

Megan Bryant, a teacher at Pass Christian Middle School, won the Educator of the Year award for encouraging the most students to submit letters.

The Mississippi Center for the Book is one of 50 state affiliates of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress. The Center's mission is to promote books, reading, libraries and literacy in society. The Center for the Book was established in 1977 as a public-private partnership to use the resources of the Library of Congress to stimulate public interest in books and reading. More specifically, Mississippi's Center for the Book is devoted to promoting and exploring Mississippi's rich literary heritage through statewide activities.

For more information, contact Mississippi Center for the Book Coordinator Tracy Carr at tcarr@mlc.lib.ms.us or visit www.lettersaboutliterature.org.

Love, Mississippi Style

Love is a strange beast. Our human hearts are both fickle and steadfast at the same time, draped in a gauze of romance. Mississippi authors are no exception to the highs and lows of love--why would they be? When two hearts begin to talk to one another, the idea that they'll ever stop is absurd. Here are two of those beginnings.

Richard Wright and Ellen Poplar (Poplowitz)

Richard Wright met Ellen Poplar (Poplowitz) about 1939. Of their first outing together, Ellen later said:

We talked for hours. We had a wonderful time. We sat on a bench and talked. There was an instant understanding between us.

Richard proposed to Ellen almost immediately, within a few weeks of their meeting. She, though, was a practical woman and wanted to be certain that they truly loved one another. After much soul-searching, Ellen decided that their love was pure and tried to meet Richard. Surprisingly, he had already proposed to another woman, a former fling, and he married her instead. Ellen was heartbroken. (Some say that Richard claimed he married Dhimah Meadman to spite Ellen. Ah, the things we do for love.) The marriage lasted less than a year. Upon Richard and Ellen's reunion:

He heard her voice and came onto the landing at the top of the stairs and called her name. "It was a really eerie thing," she says. "I knew immediately that my family counted for nothing... I was very excited and we fell into each other's arms and there was no talking after that. The whole thing was settled... I just moved in with Dick right in that house."

Medgar Evers and Myrlie Beasley

Medgar Evers met Myrlie Beasley on her first day of classes in 1950 at Alcorn in Lorman, Mississippi. They fell in love. Myrlie remembers his proposal of a little over a year later,

I couldn't speak. Medgar took the ring from the box and put it on my finger. I watched as though I were watching someone else. "I'm sorry I can't afford a more expensive ring, Myrlie," he said softly. "This is the best I can do. But along with it goes all the love I have."
I have never felt quite like I did at that moment.

Although these two marriages traveled very separate paths, the meeting of souls, the mysterious bonding of two hearts, is the same. Love is a hard road to travel, but it does, indeed, seem to make the world go round.

Want to explore the (love) lives of Mississippi authors? Our biography section is sure to warm the heart of any book lover. Come on in!

Evers, Myrlie. For Us, The Living. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1967. Print.
Rowley, Hazel. Richard Wright: The Life and Times. New York: Henry Holt and Co, 2001. Print.

http://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/diglib/language/blackboy/gallery/index.html
http://www.jacksonadvocateonline.com/?p=3192

We Will Miss Will

William Davis Campbell was born in the heat of a southern Mississippi summer of 1924, and some of that heat soaked right into him. Campbell grew up to be a preacher, strong-headed and heated about his conviction: Thou shalt love thy neighbor. All of thy neighbors. This belief stayed with him as he fought racism in his home state of Mississippi. It stayed with him when friends were martyred battling for the civil rights of others. And it stayed with him when he began preaching to those who had persecuted his friends. Campbell decided "With the same love that it is commanded to shower upon the innocent victim of his frustration and hostility, the church must love the racist." He began to preach and minister to the members of the KKK as well. As you can imagine, many people were against this notion. Will Campbell simply carried on.

He also wrote a few books along the way. His Brother to a Dragonfly was a National Book Award nominee. And Also With You intertwines the life of another white, religious civil rights proponent in Mississippi, Duncan Gray, with the story of a group of Confederate soldiers from Ole Miss. Robert G. Clark's Journey to the House traces the eponymous politician's battle to become the first African-American member of the Mississippi House of Representatives. Fiction, non-fiction, children's, and adults--Campbell reaches every audience. He was even the inspiration for a Kudzu comic character, the Reverend Will B. Dunn, who was a creation of friend Doug Marlette.

The Reverend Will Campbell died last night, June 3, 2013. He will be missed, but we will continue to read his books and listen to his message.


"The First Church of Rednecks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer" Rolling Stone, 1990. Web. 4 June 2013. http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/rolling%20stone/920S-000-031.html
"Will Campbell." Contemporary Southern Writers. Gale, 1999. Biography In Context. Web. 4 June 2013.
"Will D. Campbell, Maverick Minister, and Civil Rights Stalwart, Dies at 88" The New York Times, 2013. Web. 4 June 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/us/will-d-campbell-maverick-minister-and-civil-rights-stalwart-dies-at-88.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The Most Unromantic Valentine's Day Post You'll Ever Read

Valentine's Day is upon us! Unfortunately (or happily, for some), we don't all have a sweetheart with whom we can share the day. Here are some great nuggets that happened on February 14 that have absolutely nothing to do with love.

Frederick Douglass

• Frederick Douglass was born a slave in February of 1818. Once when he was a child, his mother called him her Valentine. He chose to celebrate his birthday on February 14 in honor of her memory. He became a staunch abolitionist and went on to edit a newspaper and to author many autobiographical works, such as A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. That's about one of the sweetest things I've ever read, and I definitely felt myself becoming emotional as I read it. Romantic value? Oh, about a 0.

• Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest opened in London on February 14, 1895. Although there is an air of romance about the play, the sheer genius of Wilde's droll wit has always been what has impressed me. Some Oscar Wilde, with or without a date, is always rewarding.

• 

  Some of the results of
  the Dresden firebombing

  The eve of 1945's Valentine's Day and well into the morning of Love Day itself heralded the beginning of the firebombing of Dresden during World War II. Kurt Vonnegut's controversial novel Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death goes into some detail about the bombing. Nothing like a little firebombing to put you in an unromantic mood.
  
  
• On Valentine's Day 1974, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was charged with treason for his book The Gulag Archipelago. The book is a detailed examination of the gulag prison system in the now former Soviet Union. Treason, exile, and Siberian prison camps: three things that don't make me feel loving or lovable.
• P. G. Wodehouse, the author of the Jeeves and Wooster books (one word: hilarious) and various other books, short stories, and plays, had a heart attack and died February 14, 1975. Not the best Valentine's Day for his loving wife Ethel.

• 

  Salman Rushdie and
  The Satanic Verses

  On February 14, 1989 the Ayatollah Khomeini, the religious and political ruler of Iran, issued a fatwa asking for author Salman Rushdie's death. Rushdie's book, The Satanic Verses, caused much conflict in the world of Islam, and many Muslims agreed with Khomeni that the book attacked the Prophet Mohammed and the sacred book the Koran. Not in a loving mood at all, was he?
• There are at least two men to whom Valentine's Day is attributed; neither of them met a pretty end. Saint Valentine of Terni was tortured and beheaded, while Saint Valentine of Rome was merely beaten and beheaded. Either way, once you've lost your head, you're probably not thinking much about romance.

If you didn't see it last year be sure to check out our Valentine's Day tribute to loving names. The Reference Department at the Mississippi Library Commission hopes you have a happy and well-read February 14th.


"Frederick Douglass." Notable Black American Men, Book II. Ed. Jessie Carney Smith. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
"P(elham) G(renville) Wodehouse." Contemporary Popular Writers. Ed. Dave Mote. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. 
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fotothek_df_ps_0000086_001_Deformierter_Stahlgittermast_an_der_Eisenbahnstrecke_.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frederick_Douglass_c1860s.jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/14/newsid_2541000/2541129.stm 
http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-valentine-of-rome/
http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-valentine-of-terni/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/1989/feb/15/salmanrushdie
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/14/salman-rushdie-ayatollah-khomeini-fatwa
http://www.todayinliterature.com/stories.asp?Event_Date=2/14/1895

Ellen, We Can't Quit You, Baby

Have you ever heard of Josephine Haxton? Born in 1921 in Natchez, she's the author of several soul-searching books about the South-Mississippi in particular. She passed away Wednesday (November 7, 2012) here in Jackson, MS.

Perhaps you're more familiar with her nom de plume. Back when Haxton began writing, she based her first book on two of her aunts. When it was ready to wing its way into the world, she didn't want her relatives to be recognized. Ellen Douglas, the author, and A Family's Affairs, the book, were both "born" in 1962. The book won a Houghton Mifflin Fellowship. Several other novels followed, in addition to essays and other nonfiction. Her novel Apostles of Light was nominated for a National Book Award. In 2000, she received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and in 2008, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.

Haxton hobnobbed with some of the literary giants of Mississippi: Shelby Foote, Walker Percy, Eudora Welty, Charles Bell. She was well acquainted with newspaperman Hodding Carter, too. In their own small way, the Haxtons both tried to stave off the insanity of some Mississippians' response to the Civil Rights Movement. Josephine held meetings in her home and ignored color boundaries. Her husband Kenneth advocated school integration. The two stayed in Greenville and raised a family. These influences consistently appeared in Haxton's books.

One of Haxton's hallmarks was her honest prose. She didn't sugar coat. She didn't shy away from hard truths. Haxton consistently confronted tensions in her home state with a sharp eye and ear for the people who live there. She saw the faults, the quirks, the human foibles within all of us-even ones we didn't know we possessed. She painted authentic pictures-of the awkward relationships between men and women; of the stumbling unions between blacks and whites; of what the South used to be and what it is becoming-that we recognized as and in ourselves.

In her last book, a collection of essays entitled Witnessing, Haxton had this to say:

I remember saying to a friend of mine, joking one day while we sat in the Greenville cemetery, the unlikely but beautiful spot where we often went to share a beer and look at the headstones, that my own epitaph should be, "She was always willing to take a small chance."

I think she did better than that. Don't you?

Douglas, Ellen. Witnessing. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2004.
Inge, William, ed. The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, Volume 9: Literature. The University of North Carolina Press, 2008.
http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20121108/NEWS/311070072/Writer-Josephine-Haxton-aka-Ellen-Douglas-dead-91

There Is No "A" In Trethewey, But There's A Poet Laureate

What a fine way to celebrate the end of National Poetry Month... the 46th birthday of Natasha Trethewey, Mississippi's Poet Laureate!

• Natasha Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi on April 26, 1966. Her father and step-mother are poets, too. Poor lady didn't stand a chance against the Muses of Poetry.
• I have something in common with Ms. Trethewey... She grew up in libraries, too. She would spend her time pouring over books while her father studied in the college library. (I used to go down to the Children's Floor of our public library and ask the Youth Librarian for recommendations while my mother worked upstairs. She had really good taste!)
• One of Trethewey's books of poetry was inspired by John Ernest Joseph Bellocq's famous (or infamous) Storyville portraits. He photographed the working girls of the red light district in New Orleans around the turn of the last century. Trethewey visualized a prostitute named Ophelia, and a book of poems was born. Amazing! (Want to learn more about Storyville? Check out the Storyville, New Orleans web page. The Mississippi Library Commission also has Storyville, New Orleans: Being an Authentic, Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red-Light District available to check out.)
• Natasha Trethewey is also a member of The Dark Room Collective. This group of writers, artists, and intellectuals was conceived after James Baldwin's funeral in 1987. It allowed African Americans to compose, write, create, dream, and discuss together and, at the same time, lend one another support. A Reading Series was soon added. Many young African American writers were inspired, and in turn, inspired others here.
• Trethewey won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She also won the 2008 Mississippi Governor's Award for Excellence in Arts for Poetry and in January of this year began a four year tenure as Mississippi's Poet Laureate. I think she deserves some applause.

I've enjoyed reading some of her poetry because much of it speaks of Mississippi. I'll leave you with part of her poem Providence, found in her book Poetry. (You can find all of her books here at MLC!)

Providence

What's left is footage: the hours before
Camille, 1969—hurricane
parties, palm trees leaning
in the wind,
fronds blown back,
a woman's hair. Then after:
the vacant lots,
boats washed ashore, a swamp
where graves had been. I recall
how we huddled all night in our small house,
moving between rooms,
emptying pots filled with rain.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Natasha_Trethewey_during_book_signing_at_the_University_of_Michigan.jpg
http://www.loc.gov/rr/main/poets/mississippi.html
http://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/writers/natasha-trethewey.html
"Natasha Trethewey." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 26 Apr. 2012.
Reed, Brian. "The Dark Room Collective And Post-Soul Poetics." African American Review 41.4 (2007): 727-747. Literary Reference Center. Web. 26 Apr. 2012.

Mildred D. Taylor, Hear My Cry

"We have no choice of what color we're born or who our parents are or whether we're rich or poor. What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we're here." - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

In 1977, Mississippi native Mildred D. Taylor won the Newbery Medal for her book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. In 1986, my mother gave it to me for Christmas. (They've redone the cover art since I was in elementary school, but this image is the one I remember.) The book is the third in a semi-autobiographical series about an African American family living in Mississippi. (Taylor based the books on her own family history.) It's set during the Great Depression, when lives were hard for farmers in the Delta, and even harder if your skin wasn't white.

This book was seminal to my understanding of race relations in my home state. I had heard the "N" word before and I knew it was a bad word that I wasn't supposed to say. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry explained why. It explained the front page of our textbooks, which even in the 1980s had a place for the race of the child using a book for the year. It explained the hurt that happened when someone was discriminated against for the color of their skin and the awful, insurmountable hatred that people inexplicably feel for their fellow human beings. It made me realize that words can do much more than hurt, that they can carry the prejudice, hate, meanness and unfounded superiority of past generations. After reading Mildred D. Taylor's book, I vowed that I would never say or even think words like the "N" word. I would never be like the people in her book.

Despite being an award-winning book for tweens and teens, the short novel has been the focus of several discriminatory groups:

• In 1993, a Louisiana high school removed it from its reading list because of "racial bias."
• In 1998, a California middle school challenged it because of "racial epithets."
• In 2000, an Alabama elementary school library challenged it because of "racial slurs."
• In 2004, a Florida school district challenged it because it was "inappropriate" for the age group reading it. Also, it uses the word "nigger."

To these detractors, I say, "Pish!" It is vital that children read more books like this. Books can entertain, true, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is entertaining. Exceptional books, however, do much more than just entertain. They enlighten. They educate. They expand our minds. So much better to read, understand, and learn to form our own opinions than to sweep everything under the proverbial carpet.

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read. Chicago, IL: American Library Association, 2010. Print.
Taylor, Mildred D. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. New York: The Dial Press, 1976. Print.

Then Again, Maybe I'll Read Deenie Forever.

I’ve put off writing about my favorite banned book this week because there are just so many to choose from. I’ve decided to go with ALL of Judy Blume’s books as my favorite banned books--because almost all of them have been challenged for one reason or another. I am grateful that my parents let me read whatever I wanted to growing up--or perhaps they just weren’t paying attention--because having the freedom to read is a gift.

When those books you want to read contain topics that you absolutely do NOT want to talk to your parents about, Judy Blume is a lifesaver. And contrary to censors' opinions, reading about someone doing something doesn't mean you're going to run out and do the same thing. Some of my favorites include the following Blume titles--I’ve also included the number of times they’ve been challenged in school and public libraries:

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret: 7 challenges
Blubber: 15 challenges
Deenie: 13 challenges
Forever: 21 challenges
Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself: 3 challenges
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t: 12 challenges

Of those, I think Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself is my favorite. I reread it a few months ago, and I was oblivious to the “profane, immoral, and offensive” content that parents have objected to. The worst thing I can remember is that Sally thinks Hitler is living in Florida.

When I was in middle school, Forever was a big deal. A BIG DEAL. Copies were always getting confiscated by teachers. I remember that my friend Carrie got in trouble for talking in science class and was banished to the science lab, a small room in between two regular classrooms. There she found a confiscated copy of Forever, which she snatched up, read, and then passed around. A true first amendment hero (and minor delinquent)!

There is good news: according to the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, the agency that records information on challenged books, challenges are at their lowest since 1990.

You can look here for more information on challenged titles—lists of titles by year, lists of authors, classics that have been challenged and banned, and more.

Banned Books Week!

It's banned books week! We'll be posting our favorite banned books here for the remainder of the week.

Here is my favorite:

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

This is my FAVORITE book. Period. The Bell Jar, published in 1963, is the only novel that was ever written by famous American poet, Sylvia Plath. Plath first published the book under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. The novel tells the story of Esther Greenwood, a young lady from Boston, Massachusetts. Esther dreams of being a writer and spends a summer interning for a popular women's magazine in New York City. After her internship, she had plans to attend a writing course from a famous author. Upon her arrival home she learns that she did not make it in to the course. The book chronicles Eshter's life as she struggles with serious depression and adjusts to life in a mental institution. Many of the events in Esther's life mirror those of the author, Sylvia Plath. The book has been said to be an autobiography of Plath's life, but with a fictional character as the focal point. Of course, not everything that Esther goes through really happened to Plath.

The book has faced its fair share of opposition over the years. In 1979 it was prohibited in schools in Warsaw, Indiana. In 1981 300 residents signed a petition in an attempt to get the book removed from libraries because it contains sexual material and promotes an "objectionable" philosophy of life. In 1998 it was challenged for use in English classes in the Richland, Washington high school district because it stressed suicide, illicit sex, violence, and hopelessness.

Stay tuned for more of our favorite banned books!

Doyle, Robert P. 2007: Banned Books: 2007 Resource Book. Chicago: American Library Association.

Letters About Literature: Let's Go Writing, Mississippi!

It’s time to start thinking about Letters About Literature, the national reading and writing competition for students in grades 4-12. Letters about Literature is sponsored by the Center for the Book (in the Library of Congress) and Target stores nationally; locally, the Mississippi Center for the Book has partnered with the Friends of Mississippi Libraries.


In the contest, students write a personal letter to the author—living or dead—of their favorite books, explaining what the book meant to them, how the book changed their life, how they related to the characters…or anything at all, as long as it is a personal letter! Books can be nonfiction, fiction, or even a short story, poem, or speech.

There are three Levels of Competition:

Level I: Grades 4-6
Level II: Grades 7-8
Level III: Grades 9-12

State prizes include a $100 cash prize for first-place winners in each Level of Competition; a $75 cash prize for second-place winners in each Level of Competition; and a $50 cash prize for third-place winners in each Level of Competition. First-place winners will also receive a $50 Target gift card and will advance to the National Level Judging.

The national judges will select six National Winners (two from each Level of Competition) and twelve National Honorable Mention Winners (four from each Level of Competition). The National Winners will receive a $500 Target gift card, along with a $10,000 Letters About Literature Reading Promotion Grant for their community or school library. National Honorable Mention Winners will receive a $100 Target gift card and a $1,000 Letters About Literature Reading Promotion Grant for their community or school library.

Yes, that’s $10,000!

The contest runs from September 1 through January 6, 2012. Entries must be accompanied by an entry coupon, found here.

For more information, visit the Letters about Literature website at http://www.lettersaboutliterature.org/ or contact Mississippi Center for the Book Coordinator Tracy Carr Seabold at tcarr@mlc.lib.ms.us or 601-432-4450.

La La La...

This blog post originally appeared 8/8/2008.

Yesterday I had the Rhett Miller song "Our Love" stuck in my head; some of the lyrics are:

Kafka in his letters to his lover Milena was alive
But he was waiting for a love that never would arrive
Their rendezvous was singular
Her husband was his friend

The reference to Kafka (and Milena Jesenka; story here) got me thinking about other songs with overt literary references. The Simon and Garfunkel song "The Dangling Conversation" came to mind:

And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with bookmarkers
To measure what we've lost

I made a list of some others, but what are your favorite literary songs?
 
-Tracy

Searching for Pigman Taylor

Last week I spent a large portion of my time performing one of the quintessential jobs of a reference librarian: squinting at microfilmed records. We subscribe to a great genealogy database, Ancestry.com, which has the capability to let you go through some microfilmed records. Anyway, while looking for someone else entirely, I ran across a man named Pigman Taylor in the Kentucky marriage records. Pigman Taylor! Can you believe it? What in the world do you think his parents were thinking? "Oh, honey, let's name him Pigman; he's pretty chubby."

Another great resource we have here was compiled by workers in the WPA. (The Works Progress Administration, or later, the Work Projects Administration, which was signed into effect by FDR.) County histories were researched across Mississippi, and along with them, the family histories that make these such a valuable tool for genealogists today. If you'd like more information about the WPA files, I highly recommend this article from Ancestry.com.

Culling these files can be monotonous work. Sometimes, though, you run across a nugget like this:

Captain Ayers served for fourteen years as chancery clerk of Benton County, and at the time of his death was auditing the sheriff's books, in DeSoto County.
He died suddenly, and later a shortage was discovered in the sheriff books, and it was the suspicion of a great many people that Captain Ayers was poisoned. However no proof of this could be gotten and nothing was ever done.

This actually reads as "later as hortage was discovered" in the WPA files. I spent at least five minutes trying to find out if hortage were some sort of rare poison. I'm almost sorry I figured out the typo! Also, a whole town suspecting foul play makes me think about old English crime novels, for some reason. Here's an excerpt from the Trees of Note section:

A very large magnolia tree on the lawn of the old Falconer Place (now the Francisco apartments) is of interest to citizens of Holly Springs, in that it was once the trysting place of Sherwood Bonner, the author, and Kinlock Falconer during a rather serious romance in their early maturity. This tree measures 80 inches in circumference.

In their early maturity! That just kills me! You know that I needed to know what happened to our erstwhile lovers. Sherwood married after the Civil War and had a child, but the marriage was unhappy and unfulfilling. She moved to Boston to further her writing, and while there, published two novels, and befriended with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She eventually divorced, and then died of breast cancer in 1883. (olemiss.edu/) Kinloch was a soldier in the Civil War and afterwards, was elected Secretary of State of Mississippi in 1878. (apollo.lib.olemiss.edu/) Unfortunately, this was the same year of the Great Yellow Fever Epidemic. Kinloch went home to nurse his father and succumbed to the illness himself. (genealogytrails.com/

By the way, Pigman married Almedia S. Anderson in February of 1852. I'm sure they had a long and fulfilling life together, hopefully uninterrupted by war or Yellow Fever.

http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=699
http://www.apollo.lib.olemiss.edu/guides/archives_subject_guide/politics/manuscript-19th?page=show
http://www.genealogytrails.com/miss/marshall/yellowfever1878.html
http://www.olemiss.edu/mwp/dir/bonner_sherwood/index.html
State-wide Historical Research Project. Marshall County WPA project microform. Works Progress Administration for Mississippi, 1938.

Albania! Albania! You Border On The Adriatic...

Yesterday, my sister mentioned that it was a holiday in Albania. You might be wondering what that has to do with the price of beans, or anything else slightly relevant, but I really enjoy thinking about holidays, even those in which I don't get to participate!

{Side note} Yes, the sister has become quite the world traveler and has spent the last several months soaking up Albanian life and culture. She's been having a fabulous time over in the Balkans. Aside from occasional oddities, which I admit sound strange to my purely Western ears, Albania also has some remarkable offerings. Between the startling discoveries of sworn virgins and ongoing blood feuds, the country also boasts the town of Butrint. This ancient city is on UNESCO's World Heritage List and, for you literati, yes--Virgil mentioned it in the Aeneid (albaniantourism.com.) Mother Theresa was an Albanian and Ismail Kadare was the winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize. One last plug? Lonely Planet named Albania as their number one country to visit in 2011. I mean, you wouldn't want to miss this, would you?

 

Or this?

{End Side Note}

It turns out that Albanians, whose country is 70% Muslim, were celebrating Eid ul Adha (Festival of Sacrifice.) This is one of the most important holy days of the year for Muslims. "It is a serious occasion, symbolizing the submission of each individual Muslim, and the renewal of total commitment to Allah" (credoreference.) For those of you who remember your Bible, this holy festival commemorates when Ibrahim (Abraham) was willing to sacrifice his son. I was always completely flabbergasted that Abraham was willing to do that, and this celebration underscores the pure devotion he showed to following God's will. Thankfully, a ram appeared and with God's instructions, Abraham killed it instead. Now, Muslims sacrifice a sheep (or other appropriate animal) which is called a qurban in remembrance of this act (setimes.com.) Interestingly, the meat is then apportioned into thirds, with part going to the family, part going to friends, and part going to the poor (about.com.) It would sure help the homeless shelters out if we all gave them 1/3 of our turkeys next week!
I hope you had an Eid Saeed (Happy Eid!) and be sure not to get mixed up in any blood feuds.
http://www.albaniantourism.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/holydays/eiduladha.shtml
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/al.html
http://www.credoreference.com/entry/collinsislam/what_muslims_do
http://islam.about.com/od/hajj/a/adha.htm
http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2010/11/17/feature-02

The Importance Of Being A Dude

This blog post originally appeared 7/24/2008.

While perusing the pages of The New York Public Library Desk Reference, 3rd Edition, I looked at the bottom of the page containing common crossword puzzle words and saw the following fabulous fact:

The word dude was coined by Oscar Wilde and his friends. It is a combination of the words duds and attitude.

Oscar is the original dude. He had an immeasurable amount of style; this photo from 1882 captures him in his favorite coat. Talk about strutting his stuff! Tres chic!

Oscar was dude-a-rific not only for concocting new words, but also for his ready wit. Here are a few Wilde quotes to get you through the day:

The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

I can resist everything except temptation.

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.

Definitely not a dude who would ever misplace his car!

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Ed. Elizabeth Knowles. Oxford University Press, 2004.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oscar_Wilde_3g07095u.jpg

Banned Books Week in the Time of Cholera.

For my turn at Banned Books Week, I could take the easy way out and say that Go Ask Alice is my favorite banned book, since I wrote about it a few months ago. And while I read it and read it and re-read it some more growing up, the fact that the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez have been challenged is more upsetting to me. Sure, Alice’s “diary” contains sex and drugs (I can’t remember if rock and roll is involved), but those are elements that parents might object to. But Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, my all-time favorite book? I object!

Love in the Time of Cholera opens with the best first line of a novel ever (I dismiss you, Ishmael): “The scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.” Who could resist that? A parent in Montgomery County, MD who said it “should be removed from all county schools because it contained ‘perverse sexual acts’” (65), that’s who. The plot concerns the unrequited love of Florentino Aziza for Fermina Daza, and his devotion to her over the span of his entire life. More than that, however, is the absolutely gorgeous language. For example, there is this:

To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.

It’s a very dense, somewhat difficult book that requires a mature reader to understand it—this factor alone should discourage the parent of a younger child from worrying that the child will be warped by reading it, as you have to understand it to keep reading. However, it is much easier to follow than One Hundred Years of Solitude, for which Garcia Marquez won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1982; I had to make a family tree and keep it in the front of my copy while I was reading in order to keep everyone straight. I am glad I did, though, because had I given up, I would’ve missed the part where Remedios the Beauty floats up to heaven—just one of the amazing moments of magic realism where something extraordinary is handled as the ordinary. One Hundred Years of Solitude has also been challenged on the claims that the book “was ‘garbage being passed off as literature’” (65).

Flipping through Robert P. Doyle’s Banned Books (which other staff members have referenced this week as well), there are tons of other fantastic books that I love that have been challenged: Native Son, The Catcher in the Rye, Brideshead Revisited, Song of Solomon, The Sun Also Rises, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Spoon River Anthology, Where the Sidewalk Ends, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gilly Hopkins, the Harry Potter series, Madonna’s Sex (I’m kidding!), The Headless Cupid, and My Darling, My Hamburger.

Librarians want to bring awareness to book challenges during Banned Books Week because we feel that information ought to be available to whoever seeks it. It is a parent’s responsibility to decide what is or isn’t appropriate for their child, and seeking to remove a book from a school or public library punishes the whole community.

Now it’s your turn: what’s your favorite banned book?

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books. ALA, 2007.

Are You There God? It's Me, Elisabeth.

Welcome back to our ongoing celebration of intellectual freedom during this year's Banned Book Week! Way back when, when I was in fifth or sixth grade, I read Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. I remember loving the book and identifying closely with the main character, but have since forgotten much about it. The book centers on the titular six-grader, her confusion about God (Her father is Jewish, her mother is Catholic.), and her clique's fascination with their developing bodies. (I ended up reading a few synopses of the book to refresh my memory. I'm not telling how long it's been since I was in middle school, but this book was published in 1970! No, it hasn't been that long!) Since 1970, Are You There, God? It's Me Margaret has been challenged, and in some cases removed, from libraries in Alabama, Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

It turns out that I had forgotten most of the plot surrounding the religious issues. I do, however, remember many of the interactions between Margaret and her friends-their exclusive club, The Four Preteen Sensations; buying a first bra; waiting to see if menstruation would ever begin-and I wonder if it's because my life, along with so many other pre-teen girls was so similar. No, I didn't have to wear belted sanitary pads, and no, I didn't come from a household where more than one religious background was present. I was just an ordinary girl trying to get through those awkward years that everyone goes through. Judy Blume's willingness to delve into the minds, lifestyles, and culture of tweens and teens, and the ease in which she does it, is the crux of the appeal of not only this, but so many of her books.

So, why have librarians in twelve states had to deal with challenges over a book that is beloved by millions of pre-teen girls? According to Banned Books by Robert P. Doyle, complainants have described it as "sexually offensive and amoral", being "built around just two themes: sex and anti-Christian behavior", and "profane, immoral, and offensive" (26). I was fortunate enough to hear Judy Blume speak in a webinar entitled Defending the Right to Read a few days ago. When she spoke about censorship, she bemoaned the fact that instead of using books as conversation starters on hot button issues, many adults are afraid that when children read, they will commit every off-base act printed in black and white. This quote is from her website:

I believe that censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children's lives. This fear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe that if their children don't read about it, their children won't know about it. And if they don't know about it, it won't happen.

This book, like many, many others, formed a seminal part of my years growing up. I'd like to send out a bif "thank you" to the librarian who recommended it. Also, I know you're dying to know: does the Mississippi Library Commission own a copy of Are You There, God? It's Me Margaret? You betcha--in English and Spanish!

Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books. American Library Association, 2007. Print.