Showing posts with label Banned Book Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Banned Book Reviews. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

In the Night Kitchen Review

I've just read it out loud while recording it for YouTube because it's been part of Banned Books Week, and yes, to get people attracted to my upcoming web series, I have to do Season 0 aka the pilot season starting with this book. This reminded me of my very own childhood so much, I recently learned about the dedication page saying, "For Sadie and Philip". That was the author's parents because they were part of the Lost Generation or something. On the other hand, to make a children's book with a dedication page saying, "For David and Cammie", I guess they were boomers, for they are godly and were raised Catholic. I was born normal and a millenial, but then was diagnosed with autism at a young age in case you don't know me. I understand how this book was made is because the author Maurice Sendak took inspiration from the roaring '20s, mostly from Nemo. (No, not the fish y'all know of. The boy in bed!) I also learned way back in the early 20th century, Nemo was printed originally as comic strips. For example:

www.comicstriplibrary.org
See? Does that look antique to you? I wonder if Little Nemo in Slumberland is either in public domain, or is it copyrighted? From October 5, 1905 - July 23, 1911, Little Nemo in Slumberland was first published under New York Herald. It was renamed to The Land of Wonderful Dreams and ran under New York American from 1911 - July 26, 1914. When the original creator is back to the Herald, the title was switched back to normal and for the last time, it ran from August 3, 1924 to December 26, 1926. Little Nemo definitely is the public domain character since January 2005 in the EU.

I have yet to watch the anime film of Little Nemo for the review afterwards.

Now, onto the story.

It all starts with Mickey waking up to the thump of something. He shouted, "Quiet down there!" and then, he magically fell down into the night kitchen, even though he was all of the sudden at some point, near the beginning of the fall, the clothes were removed, exposing his heavenly naked body. In the night kitchen, he fell into the batter, and all of the bakers were chanting while stirring up until it's really smooth like icing. While they were about to something something something something I dunno, the grey smoke puffs up and Mickey goes off to save the day by making a dough airplane and flew to the milk bottle. Mickey dives down with the liquid measuring cup and he reached the surface to pour the milk into the batter. The bakers were very satisfied with the work of foodies. When morning comes, Mickey acted like a rooster and yes, he went back to bed, knowing it was all a dream. We could bake the morning cake every breakfast because we're bookworms!

The challenge: "The book upset many librarians and adults because its young protagonist, Mickey, was depicted in the nude. Many librarians censored the book by painting diapers over the boy’s genitals, and in some cases, the book was even burned."

In the 1990s, it was the number 21 in the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of the Decade, but went down constantly to #24 in the 2000s.

I don't have to worry about diapers/shorts/jeans because I could see him being depicted naked as a child and I spotted him still today. It's still alive in my mind! Thank the LORD God for preserving it for future generations to come! These censors was, is and will be depressed.

The review: This book is such a classic and it's very good, some of you will know what went wrong when it comes to censorship. I guarantee you should check it out at your local library to discover what some of you were missing, and for your child(ren), explain why is it challenged with caution because the world's such a scary place to be, but safer in some locations where the freedom remains strong.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Newbery Medal Winning Masterpieces Double Feature Review

A Wrinkle in Time

WrinkleInTimePBA1.jpg

A 1962 Newbery Award Winner

This is the story of how Meg, Calvin and Wallace went into whether dimensions take them via three witches with three W's - Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which and Mrs. What. The mission is to find the dad who was a governmental scientist, lost after working on the tesseract. Do you know what the tesseract means?

In geometry, the tesseract is the four-dimensional analog of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of 6 square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of 8 cubical cells. The tesseract is one of the six convex regular 4-polytopes.

The tesseract is also called an 8-cell, C8, (regular) octachoron, octahedroid,[1] cubic prism, and tetracube (although this last term can also mean a polycube made of four cubes). It is the four-dimensional hypercube, or 4-cube as a part of the dimensional family of hypercubes or "measure polytopes".[2]

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word tesseract was coined and first used in 1888 by Charles Howard Hinton in his book A New Era of Thought, from the Greek τέσσερεις ακτίνες (téssereis aktines or "four rays"), referring to the four lines from each vertex to other vertices.[3] In this publication, as well as some of Hinton's later work, the word was occasionally spelled "tessaract".

That's in mathematical terms, but how in literature format? The tesseract also known as Project Tesseract in my language, is a fifth dimension through wrinkling time. It's called space warp when it comes to this book.

I think it's very interesting when I was still a fan of Contact by Carl Sagan and other sci-fi stuff, so I'm a sci-fi geek on the inward out in case you don't know me. I did fantasy and sci-fi combined on my own purpose to know that imagination is for funsies and it can mean realsies when deviantART comes into being for you to give yours a try. My subscribers are so small that I did subscribed to several people - the one who made My Inner Life a webcomic adaptation from fanfiction (Imaginary-Alchemist), the one I felt free to request ideas (Sanna2011) and the one that automatically got into me (PvtKitty). Thank you, my friends! It means a lot to me when posting stuff on the web.

Now back to the review, the fight of good against evil as the battle between light and dark reminds me how did I have to write something. Well, it's a recurring one I am writing it down as inspiration from the top two stuff I had explored through the years and recently from Christmas break of the past year. Thank middle school for assigning this! I first read it when I was twelve, it's for school. The two rereadings is when I was fourteen and recently, at age eighteen and going on super senior year. This made me picture science and fantasy, as if it came from my autistic brain. I think I'll dream on in order to keep moving forward through life ahead of now, because I'm such a better writer three times the magic L'Engle had for me to make myself love to learn, no matter how old are you. Five? Eight? Twelve? Fourteen? Eighteen? It's for all ages... trust me, if you have not read the book already, please do so, for I would love to when you comment your experience with this.

Did you know that A Wrinkle in Time was the first in the Time Quintet Saga? There's going to be several sequels available now at your local library or in bookstores.

This novel is on the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of the 90s, coming in at #23. The reasons why this book was challenged and/or banned is that it has references to witches and crystal balls, the claim that challenges religious beliefs and the listing of Jesus with great artists, philosophers, scientists and religious leaders. Shocking, isn't it? I'm not surprised. This is not anti-Christian, nor is it secular. It's pure imagination! Feed your brain with banned books right now! If you don't know banned books, research for more surprises.

Bridge to Terabithia

Bridge to Terabithia.jpg

A 1977 Newbery Award Winner

This is the one I've read the first time back in middle school, so I wonder if this book has to compare with the movie. While reading and rereading it, I found out that I am not sure. The movie from Disney is okay, but let's take a closer look at this book.

It's about two lonely children named Jesse Aarons and Leslie Burke who create a magical forest kingdom called Terabithia. Leslie is a tomboy and Jesse was artistic. They're both in fifth grade. At first, he was fearful, scared, angry and frustrated. When he first met her, his life had been changed. He has to let go of frustration.

I know why I have to let go of what my problems did occurred when it comes to my disability, because I can handle the feelings. However, here's the important rule of the day: men have to be logical, reasonable and rational, whereas women tend to be emotional (like me).

WARNING: Spoilers ahead! Duh!

This book is so tragic in the end, but it's not that. I mean, Leslie had died a terrible death in a creek after the rope broke, in which somebody said it was the stupidest way to kill off a character. I know I checked it on Goodreads recently. Do you know what it means? It means it can teach children how to deal with death, especially friends who perished untimely and by accident. It was inspired by the author's son, whose friend Lisa Christina Hill died after being struck by lightning in Bethany Beach, Delaware. She was 8 years old at the time, it was on August 14, 1974 when it happened. There is a tree dedicated to her in a memorial outside Takoma Park Elementary School in grades Pre-K to 2nd grade. Sligo Creek and Terabinthia from Dawn Treader had soon followed after to be inspired into this book.

But wait... there's more! Jesse made a bridge to Terabithia and made his little sister May Belle as the new queen.

End Spoiler

In the 90s, the ALA Most Frequently Challenged Books has listed as #8. In the 2000s, it went down twenty to #28 on the list. Censors try to purge from death as being part of the plot; Jesse's frequent use of the word "lord" outside of prayer; allegations of witchcraft; and language. To count the crush part between Miss Edmunds and Jesse, it was considered sexually explicit (which is not over the top, but still it's just the way relationships mature a bit by the time you're nine). Still shocking? I was not surprised also.

There you have it. That's the double feature. I hope that you enjoyed this review, so thank you and have an awesome day.

Sources:

Monday, June 9, 2014

Alice in Wonderland Review

This story is about a girl named Alice who follows the white rabbit and falls down the rabbit hole into her own fantasyland. It's about no matter how huge or how short things turn out over time as the story progresses for Alice to deal with. I knew the story in picture by heart - the last time I've read it was September 2012 when I read the Dalmatian press edition. I thought it was a bloodhound at first, but it turns out to be a puppy with brown curls like in the original text. Now I get it. The story was such a non-stop in one sitting for a few hours. But who cares about this book?

The book is not for everybody. In 1900, Woodsville High of New Hampshire suspended a book from classroom use due to explicative, references to sex, and demeaning interpretations of religion and teachers. I really don't get it because it does not refer sexual fantasies and what-not; how silly these people got referred to the love child-like interest between Lewis and Alice while they had read this book. I figured out problems like four times five is twenty, four times six is twenty-four and four times seven is twenty-eight. London is the capital of Great Britain, Paris is the capital of France and Rome is the capital of Italy. See? Is that simple. It was also banned in the province of Hunan, China in 1931 for the portraying animals acting on the same level as humans, I get it. But the 1951 Disney film: When it first came out in 1951, it 'Americanizes' the story British critics call it. Americans criticized Disney for distorting Carroll's prose. Today, it was considered one of the best-loved classics of all time. In my own words, this book contains pure imagination the entire time, minimum drug use, one mentioning to alcohol at the beginning of the Mad Tea Party scene and anthromorphism throughout the book.

It has been one of my childhood memories I've known enough to connect my life to this book as related due to my autism and great imagination from the past, present and future. There is no other than a blog can describe over a thousand words of imagination, love, friendship, true story of life in reality, dreams and future. In other words, this blog was considered to be the coming-of-age tale about me as a senior whose blog has been inspired by this book. I can never forget Alice because she was so similar to me and I will never forget this story no matter what. Graduation is right around the corner, I will be dearly missed because I was about to turn in the school netbook by tomorrow, and when it's turned in, I have no more blog posts left to describe on my own, but I can write down reviews and more on my journal to put it on my blog soon at the end of August like last summer. I know that Black Blazer and his cousins will come back here for my graduation weekend with their silver plastic badges for my senior breakfast and moving up assembly with me performing a love song. It all came to pass that technical stuff has come and gone. I survived indeed to have my freedom to search. I'm now looking for freedom and independence. I will enjoy life outside my blog to connect some details per post. I will succeed in school (that's about it) and college. Someday, I will be famous; and one day, everyone will love me as a beloved millenial in today's technological world to be placed as a classic for my blog. Thanks for joining me in 2013-14, followers. Hats off to me and go enjoy yourselves over this summer. You all survived through this blog! Congrats, you made it!!! Well done and... have a great summer. See you in the fall! Talk to you later! Bye. This has been a blog about my life. Hope you enjoyed the blog? Get your comments below and see you when I come back from summer break.

And one more thing after I walk out the door - this is going to be a long, busy summer ahead.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Romeo and Juliet Sparknotes Edition

This is the play about the star-crossed lovers that this tragedy, set in Verona, Italy, can be no other than this with love and death. First published in 1597, Shakespeare wrote this as original text from 1591 to 1595. Over four hundred years later, the Sparknotes team came and study the play to write down the notes so it's easy-to-understand as modern text. I didn't know what to expect from Shakespeare when I was fifteen. One year later, when I was sixteen, I joined Drama and I became a Thespian by the end of junior year. When I started blogging by the time senior year rolls around, I need to know what to expect as a Thespian - "Act well your part, and there all the honor lies." That's a catchphrase to support Drama and the International Thespian Society. I've seen four plays in high school - The Mouse that Roared (The Tale of Despereaux meets Red October), Anything Goes (Disney version of Titanic), 4AM - Is anybody out there? (Millenials at Night), and Arsenic and Old Laces (the old-timely 1940s Clue short story in 2 hours and 30 minutes), The Nutcracker (the popular late Victorian ballet is loosely based on the book, but indeed, a good adaptation for every Christmas season). Soon, comes down to the play to be performed again on a Thursday afternoon - Romeo and Juliet. The last time it played was last Monday morning - the few hours before the Induction ceremony.

According to the Banned Books Guide by Robert P. Doyle, it appeared two times - the 2011-12 edition and the 2012-13 edition. It says, in May of 2012, "some parents in Liberty, South Carolina are furious about the book their kids are reading in middle school. They say it's too mature for their kids because of the sex. The book in question is an easy-to-read version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet." In my own words, let's say it contains sexual references, mild language, some mild kissing content, brief dual violence and little intensity.

This challenged book is said to be part of No Fear Shakespeare, as I can tell it takes 146 online pages for you to read the whole entire thing from beginning to end. Five acts in one play - a great study for the play to analyze it. It's really free for you to do the new perspective if you studied it in your academic education like once, twice or several times since high school. I studied it once. It's very good that I was feeling a bit pressured to get it on with "this format of studying" in order to watch the play. I know I got more Shakespeare to do from Sparknotes - if any of his plays don't appear on Sparknotes, then I guess we'll have to study the old-fashioned way: notebook and pencil. My sister Lauren read the Folger Shakespearean Library edition of this play last year - she was impressed by the playwright Shakespeare. My mom and dad read Shakespeare literature before and I had never read anything Shakespearean before except maybe a few lines - but as Regionals came, I played Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream after Antigone from Antigone as a single Monologue audition. Did you know that the 2013 film version of Romeo and Juliet was the worst film adaptation? It lacked the impressiveness of an historical touch for boring, cheesy things; so that's why it's awfully fun to be placed in the Bad Movie Night theme: Worst Adaptation from Books and Plays. It needs to be dragged on forever once when I got the DVD (it's already released).

This has been the Banned Books review. Remember no banned book is without sin except for the right religious text for the right religious people. Next time: we're talking about Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. WARNING: A rabbit hole leads to the real-world ahead of you! Readers, time for your individual reading pick from the Banned Books Guide - it's your choice to read and review. If you read banned books before prior to seeing in shock on the Banned Books list from ALA (American Library Association)/ILA (Illinois Library Association) or world.edu, send me your ideas on the comments section below. If you're interested in this blog, do subscribe and let me know!

Note to Self: Haha! I dared to read a banned book. It's just a First Amendment practice, so you can join in the celebration, thanks to ALA.

Take Action! Protect Your Right to Read!

Step 1: Stay Informed
Step 2: Challenge Censorship
Step 3: Support Your Local Schools and Libraries

And finally... celebrate Banned Books Week (last full week of every September) and support my blog on every device for everything in your life!