The Fault in Book Censorship or How could They Ban The Fault in Our Stars...

I just finished The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. After crying my eyes out for a good 20 minutes near the end of the book, I paused to think about how unfair life can be. I guess the unfair part is not life, but things that can happen because you have a life. How you have so many days, have no idea how many days that actually is until you have no days left and then probably still don't know how many days because it's just over… Thank you Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters for making me remember that you only get so many days, so let's enjoy them or waste them or do whatever you'd like to do with them, just remember to be conscious of them while it's going on…

I read The Fault in Our Stars for Banned Book Week. The book had been lingering on my Kindle for a very long time and Banned Book Week gave me the necessary push to read it. It was banned initially for a complaint by a parent that "the morbid plot, crude language, and sexual content was inappropriate for her children." My initial thoughts were that I was happy to see a parent paying attention to what her children were reading, or what was available to read, but let's not make those decisions of what's appropriate for other people's children. My thoughts after reading the book were how can anyone think those things about this book…

I guess death is a morbid thought. I'm sorry but people die, and I'm even sorrier that children die, but wouldn't it be better to have a dialogue about this instead of putting it away into a closet? I thought the book dealt with Hazel Grace's mortality in a refreshingly honest way. I'm sure that the way Hazel and her teenage friends dealt with the subject is the way real teenagers would.

“I told Augustus the broad outline of my miracle: diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer when I was thirteen. (I didn’t tell him that the diagnosis came three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You’re a woman. Now die.)” 

Crude language?… OK, I guess when someone has cancer in a certain male area and talks about it, it could be considered crude. Actually, Hazel Grace made light of the counselor who survived his cancer, since at the beginning of every support group meeting he had to tell everyone once again about "his cancer".

And, finally sexual content… well, spoiler alert here…. 16-year-old Hazel Grace and 17-year-old Augustus Waters have sex, but it is primarily left to the imagination. No Fifty Shades, no graphic detail, just a few buttons, hoses and removal of a prosthetic involved. You could almost miss it, but just know that it happened. I imagine that this could be inappropriate for young children, but I'm sure teenagers know about sex. Good teaching opportunity here too.

So, what did I think about The Fault in Our Stars?! I loved it! It was amazing, compassionate, honest and shattering. I loved Hazel Grace immediately and was rooting for her and Augustus Waters from the start, even though I kinda knew that their love story was doomed. There was a twist that left me breathless and crying my eyes out and realizing that John Green is an amazing writer and I should have read this a long time ago. If you haven't read this, READ THIS! An amazing love story, an honest look at "how cancer sucks", and a reminder to all of us to live our life mindfully.

The Sunday Salon and Read a Banned Book Week!

*

Welcome to the Sunday Salon! Every Sunday we set aside a little time to chat books, and this week is no different, with the theme being Banned Books! So, grab a cup of joe, find a comfy chair and let's talk books!

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read

September 27−October 3, 2015

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community –- librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types –- in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

Yes, it's the 21st century and still we have book burners and censorship. I think that the point here is that parents should be involved in what their children read and help them understand what they are reading, guide them in choosing appropriate material for their curious minds. BUT, let's not infringe on the reading rights of another child, whose parent may not wish to ban a certain book. Most banning and censorship takes place in the most accessible (and free) place to check out a book - a library! Let's not make reading a privilege. What do YOU think?!

This year the theme of Banned Books Week is Young Adult (YA) fiction… Here are the top 10 banned or challenged YA books for 2014-2015:

 1. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown Books for  Young Readers)
 2. Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon Books/Knopf Doubleday)
 3. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston)
 4. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (Bloomsbury Publishing)
 5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky (MTV Books/Simon & Schuster)
 6. Drama, by Raina Telgemeier (Graphix/Scholastic)
 7. Chinese Handcuffs, by Chris Crutcher (Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins)
 8. The Giver, by Lois Lowry (HMH Books for Young Readers)
 9. The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros (Vintage/Knopf Doubleday)
10.Looking for Alaska, by John Green (Dutton Books/Penguin Random House)

It seems that Banned Books Week has been taking on a theme, instead of just promoting the reading of all banned books. Last year was comic books, and I read The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey (read my review), which I loved. In 2013, I read a classic, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, incredible writing and totally not what I was expecting. And I spent a week with Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger in 2009.

This whole week we'll celebrate Banned Books Week highlighting challenged and banned books. And I'll be reading...
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, which was banned in a Riverside, Ca. middle school in 2014 because one parent felt, "the morbid plot, crude language, and sexual content was inappropriate for her children... "HER" children. That book was a reading sensation and really promoted kids picking up a book. It may have been inappropriate for her children, and I applaud her for being involved in what her children read, but don't take the ability to read that book away from others. And so, this week, I will finally read The Fault in Our Stars, which has been lingering on my Kindle for some time.

The second book I'm going to read is not YA, but a children's book, And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. It's a true story about 2 male penguins at the Central Park Zoo in NYC who enjoyed doing everything together, and when the time came they built a nest just like all the other Penguin couples, but they couldn't lay an egg. Eventually they are given an abandoned egg and raise this as their own. This book is one of the top banned books of all time, and it really makes me scratch my head. Can reading this book really change your child's sexuality? I view this book as a cute book about the love between the two penguins, and I'm not really viewing this as a book about homosexuality. Am I wrong?! I guess it could teach children about tolerance. My library does carry the book, but I could not find it in any of my bookstores.

This whole week we'll celebrate Banned Books Week highlighting challenged and banned books. What will YOU be reading?!

Weekly Recap… This past week I finished Circling the Sun by Paula McLain, and all I can say is WOW! What an amazing beautiful book. I did not want this book to end and my heart sank as I turned that last page. The writing brought me right into the heart of Africa, and the people became real and part of my life the 2 weeks I stretched out this novel. I'll be posting my review this week. But all I can say is READ THIS BOOK! The writing reminded me of Laura Hillenbrand's Sea Biscuit with the movie Out of Africa as the backdrop. If this were a movie, it would be a sweeping big screen epic.

My reading group read Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline and everyone loved it! It was so different than what I had expected and the author did a wonderful job of merging 2 stories from 2 different time periods together. Look for my review this week on Orphan Train too!

That about does it for this week. Are you planning on reading any banned or challenged books this week? How do you feel about censorship? Follow the link to The Top Ten Frequently Challenged Books Lists of the 21st Century to see the many other books that have offended someone somewhere.

Happy Reading… Suzanne

*Artwork courtesy of the American Library Association

The Sunday Salon and The 3 Books You Have to Read NOW Before the Movie Comes Out

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! The day of the week where readers from all over the world congregate in the virtual library and talk books. So, grab yourself of cup of Joe, pull up a comfy chair and let's talk!

This week is about those books that are coming our way as movies. It's always been my feeling that I want to read the book first before seeing the movie. I don't like to form any preconceived ideas in my head about the people in the book or know what's going to happen ahead of time. Of course sometimes the movie changes the book in unpredictable ways, and if you've read the book, you know what "really" should have happened. Of course, in some cases, some people find the movie better than the book. I don't think I've ever experienced that before, but I have experienced ending of books changing, like Jurassic Park, which was an amazing book. The ending in the theater made my jaw drop open. The Reader had a twist at the end of the movie not in the book, which I think made the book better. And I couldn't read The Firm after seeing the movie because not only did I know what was going to happen, but it seemed that the dialog was straight out of the book, word for word.

There are quite a few movies coming out this year that are from books. We already have The Book Thief, Labor Day, Enders Game and Catching Fire , BUT here are 3 books you need to read now so you can enjoy the movie…

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin… Set in New York at the beginning and the end of the twentieth century, Winter´s Tale unfolds with such great narrative force and beauty that a reader can feel that its world is more real than his own. Standing alone on the page before the book begins are the words, I have been to another world, and come back. Listen to me. In that world, both winter and the city of New York (old and new) have the strength and character of protagonists, and the protagonists themselves move as if in a vivid dream. Though immensely complicated, the story is centered upon Peter Lake, a turn-of-the-century Irish burglar, and Beverly Penn, a young heiress whom he encounters in robbing her house, and who eventually will die young and in his arms. His love for her, and a gift of grace, will allow him after the most extraordinary and painful explorations and discoveries to stop time and bring back the dead. To follow him, his predecessors, his inheritors, and his companions is to experience one of the great stories of American literature.

I actually have this book lost somewhere in a TBR pile stored in a moving box. Amazon reminded me that I "bought a copy of this already in 2006", but I saw the trailer for this and fell in love. I recalled the cover to be a beautiful whispy photograph of light streaming through windows in what appears to be an old Grand Central Station. Why didn't I read this book?! Now I'm going to have to because I really would like to see the movie and I hate reading the book after seeing the movie. It just ruins it for me. I like to imagine it all in my head without someone assigning an actor or actress, and I like to know the "real" story and not just the one needed to make a movie, which is sometimes altered in mysterious ways. Time travel, romance and lost love all add up to what seems to be a wonderful historical time travel romance. Historical because I believe it will be a great depiction of New York City in a by gone era.

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin dates back to 1983, and the movie is coming to theaters this February 14th for Valentine's Day, starring Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly… There is  just enough time to read it before then! *P.S. Here's the link to the movie trailer… and "The Book".

The Fault In Our Stars by John Greene… Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

OK, here is your typical tragic teenage love story, except it isn't typical. It's gotten fabulous 5 stars reviews and John Green, the author, has been on the radar for writing wonderful books for some time. This has been on my reading list for a while, but I'll have to move it up before June, when the movie will be coming to theaters. I liked the trailer for this one too… Here it is: The Trailer and a link to "The book".

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn… On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media--as well as Amy's fiercely doting parents--the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he's definitely bitter--but is he really a killer? 
As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn't do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

Gone Girl had been on numerous "best" lists in 2012. I have to admit, I just never got around to reading it or putting it on my TBR list. It seemed like the typical "Dead Wife, Husband Did It" kind of novel. But, I may have to give this one a try. Gilliam Flynn, the author, has quite a few books behind her, all with good reviews, and the writing may overcome what I first assumed was just the "typical wife dead, who-dun-it." Anyone read this yet? What did you think?! This movie will be released in October of this year and stars Ben Affleck.

Other books to movies this year… The Giver by Lois Lowry, The Maze Runner by James Dashner, This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper, The Hundred Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, just to name a few.

What are you looking forward to seeing in the movies? Any book you think should be a movie and isn't slated for the big screen yet? What are your favorite adaptations?

Here is a link to more books to movies that may interest you courtesy of Goodreads.

Weekly Recap…
I shared two book reviews this week. First was my review of RELISH by Lucy Knisley. What do you get when you mix a graphic novel with food? Relish of course! Click on the title to read my review of this fun memoir.

Second review this week was for Are You My Boyfriend by C.B. Bryza, a take off of the Dr. Suess classic, Are You My Mother and with the same great artwork to go along with it! It's a book for adults, not because of the language, but because of the wry humor of finding the perfect man. There's a good moral to the story too that wraps it all up in the end. A perfect Valentine's Day gift book. Read my review by clicking on the title above.

And what am I reading right now?! Well, I am reading Under The Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan and am LOVING it!!! It is the story of the passionate romance between Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny. It's historical fiction and no one does this type of romance better than Nancy Horan. I read her previous book, Loving Frank and fell in love with her writing then. Expect a review soon….

Hope your reading week was good! What have you been cracking the spine on? Share all those great reads right here so we can all grab a copy!

Happy reading… Suzanne