Of Prep School & Penguins, Banned Books Read, Discussed

RFH 2010, Featured Articles

Tue, Sep 27, 2011

They read about living with the trauma of rape, and about Eve naming the animals.

They read about working minimum wage jobs, and about a young American Indian boy.

They read about a boy's prep school memories, and about an non-traditional penguin family.

The books may have been vastly different, but all had something in common: all had been banned or challenged by people who didn't like what they said.

About two dozen people gathered in the Hamilton Pubic Library's Community Room Monday night for the ninth annual Banned Book Readout. The evening was emceed by Chris Rossi.

This is national Banned Books Week nationwide.

Organized by the library and the Colgate Bookstore, the reading demonstrated the number of topics which have raised the ire of some people some places prompting books to be pulled from library shelves or removed from school curriculums.

Mayor Margaret Miller read an excerpt from Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the story of a young boy from the Spokane Indian Reservation who attended an all-white high school and the problems he encounters.

Isadora Schaller (in photo above), HCS student, read from Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book is about a high school girl's depression after she is date raped.

Beverly Choltco-Devlin an excerpt from The Skull of Truth by Bruce Coville. The book is about a magic skull that forces anyone possessing or near it to only tell the truth. It is part of Coville's popular Magic Shop series of books for young readers.

Also:

Joanne Geyer read from Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich's non-fiction account of trying to live off minimum-wage jobs;
David & Clara Lantz, read from Salome by Oscar Wilde
Xavia Andromeda Publius, a Colgate student, read part's of John Knowles' A Separate Peace, which was banned by the Vernon-Verona-Sherrill School District in 1980.
Kathy Sabino, reading from the number one banned book opf last year And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson. It tells the real story of two male penguins who hatch an adopted egg in the Central Park Zoo.
Rebecca Hewitt, read and shared illustrations from Eve's Diary by Mark Twain.
and Heather Elia, of the Colgate Bookstore, discussed her feelings about banning and burning books based on the controversy created by a Florida minister who burned The Qur'an.