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Help a Reader Out: Mystery Moose

I’m so excited! I got to have an awesome superlibrarian moment today thanks to Brice, who sent us this inquiry:

I was looking over your sight for a Halloween book I had as a kid (early 1970’s) but I can’t remember the name and was wondering (with your knowledge of kids Halloween books) if you might know the book. This is an illustrated book of 2 animal friends who dress up in costumes to go trick or treating. I think one of them was a moose. My sister and I had this hardback book about 1974 or 1975 I believe and have both been searching for it but without the title it’s difficult. She swears the story was about 2 monsters who dress up as other monsters but I think they were animals. Regardless, if you have any ideas I would appreciate. Or if you have some search ideas that will help too

Waay back in some creaky corner of my brain a barely-remembered Morris the Moose poked his head out. Did Morris have a Halloween story? I couldn’t remember. But I could find out…

It turns out that Morris does have a Halloween story, Halloween with Morris and Boris, by Bernard Wiseman, published in hardcover in 1975. It’s out of print, but if you want it, it’s possible to find it used.

When I told Brice I’d found the book, it sounded like I’d made his day… Brice, you made my day, too.

Posted on August 22, 2011 by , Reply

Why Wait For Banned Books Week?

Given my ability to do anything on time these days, I’m going to go ahead and share the latest news on banned books now, as all is not quiet on the censorship front (to mangle the words of  Erich Maria Remarque, himself author of a banned book).  Following the recent controversy over the banning of Slaughterhouse Five and Twenty Boy Summer (which I’ve already written about) just a few days ago the Sherlock Holmes novella A Study in Scarlet was banned  in Albermarle County, Virginia for its anti-Mormon sentiment (which I’m afraid I missed noticing when I devoured the Sherlock Holmes stories in middle school. It seems like kids don’t pick up nearly what adults do from many of these books). Sex, violence, and religion aren’t the only reasons parents challenge books, although those are common reasons, and it’s not only conservatives who object to the content of books in libraries and schools. Brave New World was banned in a school district in Seattle for its portrayal of American Indians as savages, and a new edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published with the removal of a word we dare not say these days, to make it palatable for schools. Sometimes a word is all it takes.

A lot of people point out that during Banned Books Week, ALA also mentions challenged books (and therefore, it appears that more books are banned than actually are).  The list below, though, is of books actually removed from libraries in the past six months (courtesy of information provided by the ALA for this article in USA Today). Read any of them? Maybe it’s time.

1. Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher

2. Big Momma Makes the World, by Phyllis Root

3. The Bonesetter’s Daughter, by Amy Tan

4. Burn, by Suzanne Phillips

5. Great Soul, by Joseph Lelyveld

6. It’s a Book, by Lane Smith

7. Lovingly Alice, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

8. The Marbury Lens, by Andrew Smith

9. Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris

10. Mobile Suit Gundam: Seed Astray Vol. 3, by Tomohiro Chiba

11. My Darling, My Hamburger, by Paul Zindel

12. The Patron Saint of Butterflies, by Cecilia Galante

13. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

14. Pit Bulls and Tenacious Guard Dogs, by Carl Semencic

15. Push, by Sapphire

16. Shooting Star, by Fredrick McKissack Jr.

17. The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley, by Colin Thompson

18. Vegan Virgin Valentine, by Carolyn Mackler

19. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones

20. “What’s Happening to My Body?”: Book for Boys, by Lynda Madaras with Area Madaras

 

Source: Jennifer Petersen, the American Library Association

Posted on August 22, 2011 by , Reply

Giveaway: unRequired Reading

Hyperion has been running one of the cooler summer reading promotions for teens I’ve seen from a publisher recently. It’s called unRequired Reading, which I like, because so many times kids are assigned books that they HAVE to read, even over the summer. In our last update, we reviewed one of the books from the unRequired Reading list, Mercy by Rebecca Lim. With the book they sent us, the folks from Hyperion also sent us an unRequired Reading water bottle, a nice thing to have if you’re going to be reading outdoors in the heat (and here we’ve broken a heat record made in 1936) or really, doing anything in the heat. Know a teen who’s been reading up a storm this summer? Been reading like crazy yourself? Leave a comment telling me what your favorite summer read has been, and win yourself a water bottle. I’ll pick a winner randomly and announce it on August 15, so you’ll have a chance to use it before the school year kicks in and the summer heat is gone. And check back with us- because if you’re a winner and we don’t have your address, we can’t mail it to you.

Posted on August 8, 2011 by , Reply
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