Hug a Librarian

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Banned Book Week, Sept. 24-30

“And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. 

“So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”

 

―Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), author, from A Man Without a Country, 2005.

 
• Editorial Comment: Banned Books Week runs through Sept. 30. Click here for a list of “Banned Books That Shaped America,” including Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” banned in 1884, poet Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” (1855), Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1940), Maurice Sendak’s children’s book, “Where the Wild Things Are” (1963), and the most banned work of the decade 2000-2009, the Harry Potter series. Wash my mind out with soap.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Absolute Certainty












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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard