Milk, Gas ... are books next?

Prices are up all around – gas, milk and other groceries are just some things that more expensive lately.

Will books be next?

Publishers Weekly tackles this topic: “As Costs Soar, Will Prices Follow?” According to the publication, the rising price of paper and fuel are forcing publishers to consider raising prices.

“Paper companies, faced with their own increased energy costs, implemented a third price hike May 1. Unlike some other periods, when prices were rolled back, the new increases have stuck—at least for now—as the consolidation of Canadian paper mills and increased demand abroad have stressed capacity.” (Publishers Weekly)

Some publishers are considering alternatives such as using different quality paper, issuing books as trade paperbacks instead of hardcovers or changing features such as book flaps.

I can see how publishers might be in a tight spot on this. At a time when people are cutting down on discretionary spending and one in four Americans did not read a single book last year, it seems risky to hike prices. According to Publishers Weekly, Wal-Mart recently told magazines that if they want to increase prices they’ll need to submit justifying the move. The same could apply to publishers.

The Red Tape Chronicles also has an interesting article about the hidden costs of inflation. For instance, if the size/ quantity of what we purchase decreases in size but not price, isn’t that a form of inflation since your dollar is buying less.

As Costs Soar, Will Prices Follow?
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6557150.html

Less for your money? That’s inflation, too
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/05/getting-less-fo.html

Morsels

CNN has an article on Ten Cent Plague, “The pictures that horrified America.”

CNN: “However, the keepers of the boundaries pushed back, Svitavsky says. In those Red Scare times, "Adults were fearful [of works that questioned the establishment.] ... Comic books were believed to be an underestimated, unpatriotic tool to get at kids."

The children, Hajdu says, illustrated the tension of the times. Some had tried to hide their collections; others had energetically taken part in comic-book burnings. He interviewed many of them, now grown-ups in their 60s or 70s. "It was harrowing to listen to them," he said.”

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/05/08/comic.books/index.html

Help Stamp Out Hunger

This Saturday (May 10), the United States Postal Service and National Association of Letters will be conducting its annual food drive.

The post office is asking customers for non-perishable food items such as canned soup, canned vegetables, pasta, rice or cereal. Place your donations next to your mailbox before your letter carrier arrives. The carrier will take the donations to a post office to be sorted and delivered to a local food bank or pantry.

According to the USPS, roughly 4 percent of Americans don’t get enough to eat –some even going all day without a meal.

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From the USPS: That four percent translates to an estimated 35 million people, including 12 million children, at risk of hunger in America. In late spring, most food banks begin running out of donations received during holiday seasons. This drive is one way people can join the U.S. Postal Service to help stamp out hunger right in their own communities.

If you didn’t receive a post card alerting you to the upcoming food drive, you can contact your local post office for more details/ to learn how you can help.

With very little effort you can help others in your community.

And Tango Makes Three Still Under Fire

The American Library Association has released the top challenged books in public schools and libraries.

There is some positive news – the number of complaints decreased. Last year there were 420 challenges versus 546 the previous year. However, according to ALA’s release many challenges go unreported.

The most challenged book – And Tango Makes Three. This is the second year in a row that And Tango Makes Three topped the list.

The children’s book is based on a true story about two male penguins at New York City’s Central Park Zoo. The duo shares a nest and when the other penguins starting having babies, place an egg-shaped rock in their nest that they treat like an egg.

"They have little luck, until a watchful zookeeper decides they deserve a chance at having their own family and gives them an egg in need of nurturing. The dedicated and enthusiastic fathers do a great job of hatching their funny and adorable daughter, and the three can still be seen at the zoo today." (Julie Roach, Watertown Free Public Library, MA via Amazon)

The Top Ten Challenged Books:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3. Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language

4. The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
Reasons:Religious Viewpoint

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Reasons: Racism

6. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language,

7. TTYL, by Lauren Myracle
Reasons:Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
Reasons:Sexually Explicit

9. It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10. The Perks of Being A Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

From the Associated Press: “In Burlingame, Calif., Mark Mathabane's "Kaffir Boy," a memoir about growing up poor and black in apartheid-era South Africa, was banned from an intermediate school after a parent complained about a two-paragraph scene in which men pay boys for sex.”

It’s depressing that the dissenting voices are keeping children from reading great works like Toni Morrison’s Beloved. I respect that everyone has a right to their own opinion, but when that leads to books being pulled from the library shelves, I have serious problems.

Why not use books that you disagree with as a chance to discuss your beliefs with your children. In the case of Kaffir Boy, that’s an opportunity to discuss the effects of poverty and racism. Or alternatively, see if your child can read another book instead of the one assigned.

Books like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings may be upsetting to some, but they’re based on reality. By trying to have them banned, their opponents are trying to stifle someone else’s voice. And that’s just wrong.

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“Free access to information is a core American value that should be protected,” said Judith F. Krug, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. “Not every book is right for each reader, but an individual’s interpretation of a book should not take away my right to select reading materials for my family or myself."

“Penguin tale tops list of `challenged' books” -http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080506/ap_en_ot/challenged_books;_ylt=AmKMwT3ITjsBqlsWWTX5kWZREhkF

Brother I'm Dying

When Edwidge Danticat was a young child, her parents emigrated to the United States. For eight years, she and her brother, Bob, lived with her aunt and uncle, Joseph and Denise in Haiti. In her moving memoir, Brother I’m Dying, Danticat chronicles her family’s history.

During their years apart, she communicates with her family through sparse letters and brief phone calls.

After moving to the United States, Dantitcat remains close with her uncle, visiting him many times. Her family refers to her uncle as their second father. When Joseph arrives for a visit, her father says:

“Do you see your children,” my father blurted out as though he’d been waiting a long time to say it. “Do you see how much they’ve grown.”

In later years both her uncle and father are in poor health. After UN troops use the roof of her uncle’s church as a base to fire their weapons, he finds himself in serious danger. Even though he had no control over what the troops did and they fired from many people’s roof, gangs threaten Joseph and his church and home are looted. A neighbor smuggles him out of the neighborhood in a disguise and he eventually flies to the United States. (He had a trip planned). When he arrives, Joseph requests temporary asylum.

It’s then, unfortunately, things take a turn for the worse. Joseph – an 81 year old with health problems, is placed in detention. He dies shortly after – in the prison ward of a hospital, unable to see his family. When he becomes sick during an asylum hearing, a medic even claims that he’s faking it. Just five months later, Danticat’s father also dies after fighting pulmonary fibrosis.

I’m woefully ignorant of Haiti’s history. It’s one of political unrest, oppression and violence. When he was a small boy, Joseph was ordered to not go too far home because his family was worried American troops would make him work in gangs rebuilding bridges and roads. His brother urged him many times to leave arguing that there was too much violence in his neighborhood. Joseph did not want to leave his church and neighbor’s.

This is a gripping, elegant, heart breaking memoir with a tragic ending. Danticat loses both her uncle and father in close succession. Shortly after her uncle dies she gives birth to her daughter, Mira, who she named after her father.

The family can’t bury Joseph in Haiti because gangs threaten to burn his corpse. He’s buried in New York.

“He shouldn’t be here” my father said … “If our country were ever given a chance and allowed to be a country like any other, none of us would live or die here.”

******

“And I’m my imaging, whenever they lose track of one another one of the other calls out in a voice that echoes throughout the hills, “Kote w ye fre m?” “Brother where are you?”

And the other one quickly answers, “Mwen la. Right here, brother. I’m right here.”

Additional reading

A Haitian family, linked by love, must learn to live on separate shores, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0911/p13s02-bogn.html

NBCC Award Finalists in Autobiography: Edwidge Danticat's "Brother, I'm Dying," http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2008/01/nbcc-award-finalists-in-autobiography.html

Edwidge Danticat, Dealing with Birth and Death, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14721447

Book buying addiction

I came to the sad realization many years ago that I buy more books than I can ever possibly read. It's my Achilles heel. I hate clothes shopping, generally prefer to wear my Chucks than buy cute fashionable shoes and almost never wear jewelry. (Not that I'm implying Chucks aren't cute or fashionable!)

That leaves books. I try. I make pledges/ resolutions. I will not buy ANY books for six months. For every five books I read, I'll get rid of two when I'm done. I will go to the library, instead of "checking" out Amazon. Never fails, I break my word.

And the crazy thing is I can find books anywhere... grocery store, garage sales, etc. This week I popped into Costco to return something and made the foolish decision to browse. Bought two books -- Al Gore's Assault on Reason and Loving Frank. (I think they pipe something through the air filter because I cannot go into Costco without buying something. Look a barrel of coffee, hmm that's a lot of coffee, but it's so cheap. I'll drink more coffee!)

I love finding books in unexpected places ... my local thrift store, tag sales and library book stores are great places. On a recent trip to my neighborhood thrift store I found Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes and The Narrows by Ann Petry (who wrote The Street). I also found Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress and Quite a Year for Plums. When the Waltham library had its annual book sale I found What the President Does All Day, which was all about JFK. I love quirky, offbeat or cool finds like that. Best of all, it was less than a dollar. Now that's a bargain!

So keep an eye out, you never know when you might spot a treasure. And I'm not buying any more books until I've read the current batch of to reads that's out in my apartment. This time I mean it!

Even More Junot Diaz

Fresh Air is currently running older episodes. It recently aired an interview with Junot Diaz, who wrote The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Regular Dear Reader readers may recall I really enjoyed this book. In this Fresh Air interview, they describe Oscar as the “ghetto nerd at the end of the world.”

Diaz speaks about his book, his upbringing and the Dominican Republic. He even does a reading from his novel.

One thing I thought was interesting was his discussion about the different languages in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. There were parts I didn't understand whether it was Spanish or SciFi references I didn't get. Diaz notes that he wanted there to be one language chain that the reader doesn't get. "I wanted everyone to know what it felt like to be an immigrant," he said.

I’m currently reading Brother I’m Dying – a memoir by Edwidge Danticat. It’s interesting to read about the other side of the island – Haiti, which similarly to the Dominican has a history of unrest.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90111248&ft=1&f=1032