Got Your Jack-O-Lantern Carved Yet?

Halloween is fast approaching! If you haven't done your pumpkin yet, here's a book that may help you:

Insanely cool designs fill the pages of this book that contains instructions on how to carve images on pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.

And if you're curious about the squash family to which pumpkins belong, here's a nifty book:

Pumpkins, squash, and gourds have more to offer than just creating a beautiful fall display, and author Amy Goldman shares with readers their many uses and some recipes incorporating them. 

In the Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Week

Have you noticed the pink flamingos around the campus? The campus has been flocked with pink flamingos to help the students, faculty, and staff remember that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The flamingos are not the only things that you will see on campus this week though. Stroll around the building and look at the office doors that have been decked out in pink for Breast Cancer Awareness. Each participating department has designed and decorated their own door, and the image below is from the Sullivan University Library and Learning Resource Center.

No Matter the Size Shape or Color We Want to Save Them All

If you want more information about Breast Cancer Awareness Month come by the library where we have materials about breast cancer or visit the American Cancer Society's website.

P.S. Don't forget that you can pay $1 on Wednesday to dress down and support the Life-Making Strides Against Breast Cancer fundraiser.

Our Banned Book Display

Have you perused the Banned Book display in the Library and Learning Resource Center yet? It's time is limited—only two more weeks. Here's some pictures:

These pictures are of our bulletin board that we created to go along with the display:

Banning a Bridge

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

This book was banned or challenged so many times before 2001 that it was #8 on the American Library Association’s list of 100 most banned or challenged books from 1990 to 2000!  The most common reason for banning or challenging this book is the theme of death.  Other reasons include: offensive language and concerns that it promotes Satanism, violence, and witchcraft.  One town in Connecticut went so far as to say that having the book in schools violated the First Amendment “since the use of witchcraft in the book equated with the Wiccan religion.”  

Source: Baldassarro, R. Wolf. (2012).  http://bannedbooks.world.edu/2012/11/04/banned-books-awareness-bridge-to-terabithia/

Yes, Virginia, even the dictionary (and a history book) have been banned

Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary

This dictionary was banned from a California classroom in 2010 when a parent filed a complaint that her child came across a term in the dictionary that the parent thought was too sexually explicit for children.

Source: R. Doyle. (2010). Books Banned or Challenged in 2009-2010.

A People’s History of the United States

Author:  Howard Zinn

This book was challenged in 2009 in a Virginia high school advanced placement class, “because the book is ‘un-American and leftist propaganda,’” (Doyle, 2009).  More recently, after the author’s death in 2010, former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels attempted to have it banned from all classrooms in Indiana.  He then back tracked and claimed he only wanted it removed from eighth grade classrooms because children at that age are very impressionable.

Source: R. Doyle. (2007). Books Challenged or Banned in 2006-2007.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Alice in Wonderland or Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The earliest known banning of this book was in 1900 from a high school in New Hampshire. It was banned on the basis that it contained coarse language and sexual innuendo and “derogatory characterizations of teachers and religious ceremonies.”  One of the most absurd cases of banning was in 1931 by a governor in China because “animals should not use human language, and that it was disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level.”  It has also been challenged more recently because of claims that it encourages drug use and child abuse.

Source: R. Wolf Baldassarro, (2012).  http://bannedbooks.world.edu/?s=alice+in+wonderland

Great Scott! Banning the Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This book had a bit of a rocky start before it was even a fully completed novel.  In 1923, several magazines refused to publish it because of the controversial content.  It has been challenged throughout the years by several different colleges and high schools, and they cite language and sexual content as the reasons for challenging it. It has never been fully removed from any shelves or classrooms though.

Source: Karolides, N.J., Bald, M., & Sova, D.B. (2011). 120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature. Checkmark Books: New York.

"Oh, Bother!" said Pooh

Winnie the Pooh

Author:  A. A. Milne

The only known attempt at banning this book in the United States occurred in Kansas in 2006.  A group of parent listed it, along with a few other books such as Charlotte’s Web, because of the presence of talking animals.  The parents felt that talking animals were an insult to God.  The most notable banning of this book may be in Russia in 2009.  Russia’s Justice Ministry claimed it to be pro-Nazi “because a depiction of Winnie-the-Pooh wearing a swastika was discovered among the personal possessions of a known political extremist” (Baldassarro, 2011).

Sources:  

Elizabeth Warkentin Special to the, S. (2011, September 26). Defending literature can take its toll. Toronto Star (Canada).

R. Wolf Baldassarro, http://bannedbooks.world.edu/2011/06/19/banned-books-awareness-winniethepooh/

Russia Hammers Winnie the Pooh: The Pooh Bear Gets Banned. (2009, August 23). The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from: http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204884404574364964010507896

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Why Were You Banned?

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Author: Bill Martin Jr.

This book was a completely accidental banning.  In 2010, the Texas state board of education was so opposed to a book written by Bill Martin (no relation to Bill Martin, Jr.) and eager to ban his books that this book got banned as well.  Ironically, the book they wanted to ban was written and published AFTER the death of Bill Martin, Jr.

Source: Troop, D. (2010, January 25). “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Why Were You Banned?” The Chronicle of Higher Education.

What Do You Mean that Book Was Banned?

Celebrate Banned Books Week and the freedom to read all month by exploring the interactive display in the library and the exhibit on the bulletin board near room 141. Feel free to take one of the Banned Books Week bookmarks or brochures that are available in the library too.

Each school day during the month of October the library staff will post additional information about some of the featured banned and challenged books on the library’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/SullivanLex.