Banned book week

In case you haven't been bombarded with emails  as I have, this is banned book week, a time to celebrate intellectual freedom. If you search on Google you can find lists of books that have been banned over time, everything from Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird to Gone with the Wind. Probably the classic some of us oldsters remember is Lady Chatterly's Lover--scandalous in its time. Some of the classics of our time and earlier times are on that list. Why are they banned? Often because parents, trying to protect their children from evil, protest to school boards. Lauren Myracle, an author of young adult books, calls herself America's number one most challenged author in the country in 2009. She writes about a young girl kissing another girl, a fifth grader with two moms, high school kids drinking too much and doing stupid things--and, yes, tampons.
In a wonderful column today in Shelf Awareness, an online newsletter for booksellers, she says the banned book argument often boils down to us (liberal thinkers) and them (conservative thinkers who go to church every Sunday, buy into conspiracy theories, and say, "Hell, yeah" when Rush Limbaugh mocks universal health care.) The division is not quite that simple. Myracle identifies hereself as a person of faith, a Christian who sings in her church choir. I have to agree that I identify myself as a person of faith and am proud to say I'm a Christian. But I'm not a Christian for book banning. Questioning is an essential part of faith, and if we are to lead meaningful lives we have to have intellectural freedom. Nothing irritates me more than people who think they can tell me what's right for them and for me--from banned books to abortion to politics.
If  you want to read the entire column, and it's thought-provoking, try to find today's Shelf Awareness on google (the full URL didn't print out, so I can't help much there).
A schoolteacher once told me that my very first young-adult novel, After Pa WAs Shot, would be banned if her superintendent read it, because I used the word "Kike" in it. The novel was set in East Texas in the late nineteenth century when Jewish immigrants landed in Galveston and made their way north to smaller towns. The word certainly did reflect my feelings but it was appropriate to time and place. I laughed aloud at the idea of me, Pollyanna, being banned.
On the Sisters in Crime listserv there's been much talk about banned books, and one author challenged each of us by asking what banned book we were going to read this week. I'm reading a really grisly novel, not my usual choice, so maybe that counts. Interestingly enough it also has an Amish background. But if I were going to reread one it would be To Kill a Mockinbird. I'm itching for my eleven-year-old granddaughter to be old enough to read it.
Many bookstores this week will have displays of banned books. Stop by, browse, and pick one up. See how you feel about banned books, intellectural freedom, and faith. I think they're all part of the mix. And here's a cheer for Lauren Myracle.

Quiet night

Shhh! Quiet! Jacob's asleep. He went down without a peep. This is his first time to spend the night with me, and his mother was more worried, I suspect, about my sleep than his. But so far, knock on wood, we're off to a good start. It's been a babysitting weekend. Yesterday I went to Frisco, got a brief glimpse of Maddie and Mel before they left on a Girl Scout camping trip, and then spent the evening with Jamie and Edie. This morning, Jamie had a sprint triathlon (he took second in his age group and sixth overall--pretty darn good!), and I stayed with Edie. At one point, she fixed me with her direct look and said, "Are you babysitting me?" I told her yes, and she asked where she would be if I hadn't come. I told her that her daddy wouldn't have done the race, and that seemed to staisfy her. Together we watched a lot of the food channel, though she insisted on turning it off because two programs in a row featured shrimp and she doesn't like shrimp.
It's been a good two days for me. Disgruntled authors and pesky business reports and all the things I worry about all the time are in the way far background. I slept heavily last night, albeit with weird dreams of which the only one I remember is that I was at the Democratic National Convention as part of Hilary's team. Is that a message? But this morning I woke feeling really good about the world, me, everything. I counted my vacation days, and I have more than I thought stockpiled, so I may take them to get that "being away from it" feeling. But I'll have to leave town! Wish I could find someone who wanted to go to Santa Fe for a week!
Weighty matters on my mind? Not many. I'm afraid I've also been escaping into mysteries. I read two more Cleo Cloyce coffeehouse mysterires, and enjoyed them, and now I'm reading--on my Kindle--an Aurora Teagarden mystery called Real Murders. I'd been saving the books on the Kindle for the Scotland trip, but now I feel I should be reading them. I find it easy to read on, though I know I'm under-utilizing all the marvelous things it will do. And I have to watch, because I occasionally hit the wrong button and it bounces from book to book. Sort of like Jamie's laptop when I tried to answer an email and it kept bouncing from line to line. I gave up.
Jamie talked to me again about his conviction that you have to believe in your goals, believe they'll come true, or they never will. That bounces me back to my mystery--I am convinced it's as good as many on the market (though the last two I've read are really erudite in references and solid in constrauction) and yet I'm not sure I believe I'll ever get it published. In a way, to me, it's like religion--a part of me would like to have a "born again" experience so that I could believe without a doubt, but I remain a liberal Christian who questions and doubts and always wonders if I've found true faith. It seems to me, in both cases, the burden is on me. And so I struggle with my mind, trying to convince it to believe.
I may start tomorrow very early, depending on Mr. Jacob. But his mom will come to get him about 9:30, and I'll go to Central Market to get stuff for dinner that night and for supper all week. I have gained some weight, and I'm going to start watching it much more carefully--all that butter I use to cook, the chocolate sauce I pile on ice cream at night. It's salads and veggies for me for a while. But tomorrow I'm cooking lamb burgers for Jordan and Christian--maybe Jacob will eat a bite. There's always an excuse for putting that diet off. But I really am going to watch. But after that Central Market trip--a good nap!