Freedom To Read Week
It’s Freedom to Read Week in Canada! The official website www.freedomtoread.ca has a ton of resources for how to celebrate. Fascinating to read the list of challenged books and magazines. Pick one up in support of our freedom to choose our own boundaries.
I can’t say I have a specific experience with book banning, but I can recall the buzz surrounding one of Judy Blume’s books. I think it was Forever. And if memory serves (hey, grade six was a loooong time ago) Deenie was also considered pretty shady. Can’t recall who exactly raised the fuss, whether it was just casual disapproval or more formalized as in a complaint from a parent. I do know that I read both. Particularly Deenie. I loved it. We girls passed it around at school, lending it to each other to read. I still remember Deenie’s hatred of her scoliosis brace. At a time when body image was becoming something I was starting to be aware of, and not in a good way, it was an important book to me.
Were you ever forbidden to read a book you really wanted to read?
May we always have access to books that are important to us, whatever our definition of important may be.
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Flight of the Silver Dart
Big celebrations going on this weekend in the world of Canadian aviation. It’s the one hundredth anniversary of the flight of the Silver Dart.
Never heard of it?
First heavier-than-air flight in Canada. You know how those Americans have their Wright brothers and all that? We Canajuns have the Silver Dart.
Background on the Silver Dart here at the Canadian Encyclopedia.
And all the info on the celebrations in Baddeck, Nova Scotia from February 20 – 23 here:
www.flightofthesilverdart.ca.
Pretty daring to launch yourself up in the sky in one of those flimsy things, don’t you think? I mean, sure I have flown in an ultralight a few times when I was a lot younger, but at least I knew the thing worked!
Have a high flying weekend
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Cybils Winners
The Cybils awards for this year were announced. The full lists of winning books from 2008 are available here:
http://dadtalk.typepad.com/cybils/2009/02/2009-cybils-winners.html
Thanks to all those bloggers who donate their time and energy to put together a terrific list of reading and a terrific awards program!
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
Happy Groundhog Day
The verdict is in: six more weeks of winter. The groundhog closest to me, Wiarton Willie, saw his shadow. And so did his counterparts Shubenacadie Sam and Punxsutawney Phil. So it’s unanimous.
Sigh.
Somehow I’m not surprised. I got stuck in my driveway on Friday for the second time this year. The power went out this morning. And so it goes.
But back to groundhogs.
When I was little I called groundhogs “twitchy.” As in they weren’t groundhogs, they were twitchies. I grew up in the middle of a field, the back section of which was filled with asparagus someone had planted at one time but then grew up “wild” year after year. (Feral asparagus? Now there’s something to ponder.) Needless to say, that field of asparagus was Groundhog Heaven!!!
But anyway, one day a groundhog came right up to the back of the house and looked in the window. I stood there watching its whiskers twitching, and I said “Twitchy!” (According to my parents; my memory’s not that good.) So ever after at our house, all groundhogs were called Twitchy. If I saw one out in the field I’d yell “Twitchy!” and Dad would go get his pellet rifle. He rarely connected (sorry, Dad). Yeah, this was the 70s way out in the boonies. You had to be there.
But while I’m thinking groundhogs, check out The Groundhog Day Book of Facts and Fun by Wendie Old.
May it help me remember we shouldn’t shoot the messenger.
© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.