Monday, September 28, 2015

Banned Books Week Y'all!


Hear yee! Hear ye! It is that special time of year where we celebrate our intellectual freedom (a.k.a the right to read what we darn well please)- that most special of bookworm holidays- Banned Books Week. (Yes, I realize that was a horrible run on sentence.)

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) releases a top ten list, each year, of the books that have been most challenged over the course of the year. A book challenge sadly differs from a reading challenge in that it is considerably less awesome, and also does essentially the opposite.

According to the ALA's Frequently Challenged Books website:

"Challenges are documented requests to remove materials from schools or libraries, thus restricting access to them by others. In some cases OIF may get numerous details about who challenged a book, why they are complaining about the book, what happened during the challenge, and the current status of the book. In other cases, few details are supplied beyond the fact of the challenge and the reasons for the challenge."

So without further ado, here is the ALA's--------

"The top ten most frequently challenged books of 2014 are: 

Summary:"Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot." -From sherloc.imcpl.org
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Reasons for challenge: anti-family, cultural insensitivity, drugs/alcohol/smoking, gambling, offensive language, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, violence. Additional reasons: “depictions of bullying”

Summary:"An intelligent and outspoken only child, Satrapi--the daughter of radical Marxists and the great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor--bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country." -From sherloc.imcpl.org
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Reasons for challenge: gambling, offensive language, political viewpoint. Additional reasons: “politically, racially, and socially offensive,” “graphic depictions”


Summary:"At New York City's Central Park Zoo, two male penguins fall in love and start a family by taking turns sitting on an abandoned egg until it hatches." -From sherloc.imcpl.org
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Reasons: Anti-family, homosexuality, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “promotes the homosexual agenda”

Summary: "Pecola Breedlove, a young eleven-year-old black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dreams grow more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity.--from publisher's description."-From sherloc.imcpl.org
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Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “contains controversial issues”

Summary:"Introduces human sexuality, describes the changes brought about by puberty, and discusses sexual abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, and pregnancy."-From sherloc.imcpl.org
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Reasons: Nudity, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group. Additional reasons: “alleges it child pornography”

Summary:"When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe." -From Amazon.com


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Reasons: Anti-Family, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group. 

Summary: "Traces the unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant's son in a tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy through the atrocities of the present day."-From sherloc.imcpl.org
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Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited to age group, violence

Summary:"The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up." -From Amazon.com
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Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group. Additional reasons: “date rape and masturbation”

Summary: "The memoir of Jaycee Dugard who was kidnapped on June 10, 1991, when she was 11 years old, and was missing for over 18 years before her reappearance in 2009."-From sherloc.imcpl.org
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Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group
Summary: "Callie rides an emotional roller coaster while serving on the stage crew for a middle school production of Moon over Mississippi as various relationships start and end, and others never quite get going." -From sherloc.imcpl.org
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Reasons: sexually explicit

(Out of 311 challenges as recorded by the Office for Intellectual Freedom)"

Sadly, I have not read every book on this list. So I cannot attest to all of their pros-cons. And therefore, I will not bore you with reviews. 
Essentially that is the point of the list, to let you know that my opinion of a book and yours may differ. And that is totally cool. However, my opinion of a book (or the opinion of any other reader) should not keep you from having access to read it, if you want to.  And vice versa. That is not cool. 
That is what Intellectual Freedom is all about. It's the right of equal access to books for everyone.
So go on with your bookworm self, and read what you wanna. Because, the more you read, the more you know and "oh the places that you'll go"....Okay.... I'll stop now.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Presenting at Conference or................................. "I'm going on an Adventiaaaa!"

So I have been a bit of a zealot about promoting Preschool Dance Parties, as you all might have noticed. Last month I presented at my local youth services library conference. The theme of the conference was "Choose Your own Adventure." My particular talk was titled "To Dance will be a Great Adventure: Music and Motion in Preschool Programs."

I won't bore you guys again with the details of setting up a Dance Party program. You can read my previous Dance Party post if you like, or check out Angie Manfredi's excellent blog article. Also here is the link to my public Prezi for the breakout presentation.

Overall, the Prezi was the most involved portion of the process. It is a completely different way of looking at presentation software. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend creating a free account and just playing around with it. I used Prezi instead of MS Powerpoint for the memorable transitions. I was lucky that a webinar on the software popped up in my library's training calendar. It gave me some great tips....and I had to start over twice!

But that is neither here nor there. When it came to the actual presentation day, I was highly stressed, but in that good way. I was able to justify wearing yoga pants professionally because we were dancing. So that helped. Yay slacking without slacking!

I gave the Prezi presentation for the first 20 minutes, and we had about 20 librarians scattered throughout the seats. It seemed to go over well. There was a smattering of questions and I didn't hear any snoring, so I'll chalk it up as a win.

When it came to do the actual dancing, I had the attendees help with stacking chairs and moving them to the side, while I moved the projector and set up the sound equipment. I use an external speaker and iPod dock in the branch Dance Parties and it worked perfectly for the room.

It was the last breakout session of the last day of the conference, and honestly I would have been happy to get 2 librarians dancing. But I had over 30 filter in plus some conference volunteers. We had a great time, and at the end, they gave me chocolate. So over all it was an excellent introduction to the world of presenting for me!

Thanks CYPD!