Blog Archive: March 2009

This week's Poetry Stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect was to write a triolet. The pattern of repetition reminded me of riding a swing, swooping one direction, then retracing your path.
 

Swing Song

Over the rooftops I go swinging
‘til I know no up or down.
Silent as geese, moonward winging,
over the rooftops I go swinging—
body sailing, heartbeat singing.
Waving goodbye—or hello?—to my town,
over the rooftops I go swinging
‘til I know no up or down.
 

Julie Larios has this week's Poetry Friday round-up at The Drift Record!

I love the cover of She Dared: True Stories of Heroines, Scoundrels, and Renegades, by Ed Butts (Tundra 2005). We've got it on display for Women's History Month, and while it's too bad no one's checked it out yet, I get a kick out of seeing it every time I walk by.

The woman on the front is Pearl Hart, "Ontario's Bandit Queen," and I love how unabashedly bad-ass she looks. I mean, there's a team of horses running over her arm, and she's not even flinching.

Aw, heck, I'm going to check out the book myself. I wanna know more about Pearl. Maybe even find out where she got that bad-ass hat.

Author Deborah Lynn Jacobs posted about a censorship attempt in West Bend, Wisconsin. Two West Bend Community Memorial Library patrons, Ginny and Jim Maziarka, have filed a complaint about the books on the library's online "Out of the Closet" reading list for sixth to twelfth graders.

The original GM Today article isn't freely available in its entirety, but here’s a taste:

“We find the books for youth on homosexuality to be biased, gay-affirming, promotional and romanticized," the Maziarkas said in an e-mail sent to the Daily News. "We believe our library should be offering appropriate, wholesome literature to our youth instead of pursuing the illegitimate goals of transforming the views of other people's children on the contentious issue of homosexuality.”

In another article, Ginny Maziarka is quoted thusly:

“These books, all of them, are pro-homosexual books. There aren’t any books for kids who are maybe looking to steer away from the lifestyle or are questioning how to get out of the lifestyle.”

Yet another article reads, “Ginny Maziarka said she's not upset about the books, but the fact there's not a section of books with opposing viewpoints... Maziarka said she doesn't want all the books banned but is asking for two of them to be removed because she said the language is pornographic.” The two books in question are The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky, and The Geography Club, by Brent Hartinger.

Whether this apparent backing-off is because the Maziarkas have actually modified their complaint or instead a function of the library’s formal challenge process is unclear. In any case, the West Bend Community Library is doing everything right. The Maziarkas made a broad complaint about a list of over 50 books; the library has required them to file formal challenges against specific titles. Next the matter goes before the board.

Apparently the public interest has been so great that the March 3 board meeting was cancelled due to lack of space for the 300-plus interested members of the public. The rescheduled March 25 hearing has also been postponed due to a scheduling conflict.

I’m reminded of Douglas County, Colorado, Libraries Director Jamie LaRue’s talk at ILA about listening to what complainants really want and trying to help them, rather than treating them as the enemy. To Individual Me, the Maziarkas definitely feel like the enemy. But, “pornographic” charges aside (since that’s a cut-and-dry question of censorship—two individuals making a reading decision for the whole community), if the Maziarkas really do want to see “opposing viewpoints” represented, then it seems to Librarian Me that maybe the library should provide content that fits the bill.

But what does that mean in practical terms? Do the Maziarkas want to see books about homosexuality being an illness and/or sin and/or poor “lifestyle choice”? Books with homosexual characters living miserable lives, dying young, and burning in Hell? Books in which prayer and psychotherapy can “cure” homosexuality? Would the library be under any obligation to offer such books in their YA section (as opposed to adult)? Would it be under any obligation to include such books on the “Out of the Closet” list or otherwise publicize them to teens? The possibilities rankle and sicken me, at least as much as the Maziarkas are rankled and sickened by “pro-homosexual books,” I am sure.

Or am I stupid for even considering these questions? I mean, would I be arguing for sexist or xenophobic literature to be represented? But if the Maziarkas were making an argument for sexist or xenophobic literature, I doubt they would have gotten nearly this far with their complaint, whereas homophobia's still socially acceptable.

What do you think?

You know the glory of a new box of crayons? You peel back the cardboard top, and there they stand in neat rows, brilliant colors, perfectly pointy. But it never fails: a few months later, you're stuck with a bunch of stubs.

I swear I don't intend this as a metaphor for life; I'm just explaining how it is that this winter I cleaned several quarts of crayon stubs from my library's crayon box. And how the supply of stubs keeps growing.

I'd heard of melting down crayon stubs to make "crayon cookies," so I thought I'd give it a try. I loved Danny Seo's butterfly crayons, so I followed his basic instructions—though because I plan to use these in toddler programs, I went with a small biscuit cutter for greater durability.

Here are the results:

Pretty, aren't they? They're also sturdy and easy to color with. Depending on how the colors melted, you can draw a single color or stripes. I think they'll be a fun alternative to play with.

A few lessons learned:

• If you melt the crayons in a jelly roll pan, as Danny Seo suggests, it's very easy to spill hot wax over the edges.
• If some crayons are piled higher than others, those colors will spill across the top surface and may grow muddy. (I put the muddy ones at the bottom of the basket; they still draw fine, but they're not as sightly.)
• Unless you cut the crayons in a grid, you'll still end up with a lot of wasted wax at the end.
• If you're fine with circular crayons, you might want to use old or disposable muffin tins, as I've seen suggested elsewhere. You'll have more control over which colors blend together and you won't have wasted wax. I imagine that muffin tins are also more "wieldy" than a jelly roll pan, reducing the chance of spillage.
• This is not a project for young kids. They could help peel the crayon stubs, sort the colors, and arrange them in the tray, but once the oven gets involved—forget it!

Sometimes it doesn't take a lot of imagination as to why a book hasn't circulated.