WWW Wednesday (09/21/22): Banned Books Week Edition

Hello and happy Wednesday everyone!

Since this week’s Banned Books Week, I’ve been reading a few banned/challenged books to prepare for my blog posts! I haven’t done one in a few weeks and felt like this was the perfect opportunity to get back into it. Although I will mainly focus on banned/challenged books, I’ll include a couple other books that don’t fall into this category that I’ve read recently.

WWW Wednesdays were originally, hosted by A Daily Rhythm but has been revived by Sam from Taking on a World of Words.

Now, let’s talk books!

What I’ve Read

I did end up finishing The House On Mango Street, which I posted about on Monday for Banned Books Week. After finishing, I did continue reading The Hero Of Ages, but I also listened to I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. It was the first audiobook I’ve listened to in full, so that was fun! I have wrote a whole Instagram post about it if you want to hear more of my thoughts.

What I’m Currently Reading

I told myself I wanted to read some other stuff before starting the final Mistborn book from the original trilogy… but in case you can’t tell, I started The Hero of Ages. I’m also reading through If Beale Street Could Talk, and I’ve been enjoying it so far! This is the first book by James Baldwin that I’ve read, and his writing style is fun to read. Baldwin does talk about issues of racism that were prevalent during the early 70s, but it’s interwoven with some interesting thoughts on feminism as well.

What I Plan On Reading

Right now, I’m thinking of reading The Bluest Eye next. Even if I don’t get to it this week, I would love to get to it sometime before the end of the year!

And that’s all I have for this week’s WWW Wednesday! Let me know what you’re reading, or what you just finished reading, in the comments below 👌

On that note, I will see you in the next post coming out tomorrow!

-Erin (:

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Banned Books Week 2022 (Top Ten Tuesday): Banned Books To Read This Fall

Hey everyone, and welcome to the third day of Banned Books Week!

Since today is Tuesday, it’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday… but I’m putting my own twist on the prompt.

Continue reading “Banned Books Week 2022 (Top Ten Tuesday): Banned Books To Read This Fall”

Banned Books Week 2022 (Book Highlight): The House On Mango Street

Hello everyone and welcome to the second day of Banned Books Week 2022!

Today I’ll be talking about The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. The House On Mango Street is a story following our young protagonist, Esperanza Cordero, and her experiences as a Chicana in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago over the course of one year. The book is based on Cisneros own experiences as she entered adolescence and began facing the realities of life as a young woman in a poor and patriarchal community. It shines light on elements of the Mexican-American culture, along with incorporating themes of social class, race, sexuality, identity, and gender.

Continue reading “Banned Books Week 2022 (Book Highlight): The House On Mango Street”

Banned Books Week 2022: Let’s Get Started

Hello and happy Sunday everyone!

Today is the start of the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week 2022, and as someone who is passionate about the topic of banned books, I’m going to be posting blogs every day this week about various banned books that I have read or picked up recently.

Also, as you may have heard, book banning is an even more pressing issue now than it has been in the past few years. I think it’s even more important now than ever to keep this discussion going and to highlight Banned Books Week, as more school teachers and librarians are facing the pressure of book challenges. According to the American Library Association (ALA),

“ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. Most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ persons.”

American Library Association

Below are more stats on book banning, including where they most commonly occur and who typically initiates them:

Image Courtesy of the Office of Intellectual Freedom (American Library Association)

Back in my spring semester of NYU, the club I was a part of, the Online Writing and Languages Society (OWLS), had an event with Renee Di Pilato, who is director of libraries for Sarasota County Government. She discussed the impact book banning, as well as ways to support your local libraries and schools during this rise in books banning. More information on the event, along with additional resources, are available in the event recap post I wrote following the Q&A.

https://owlsnyusps.wordpress.com/2022/06/08/event-recap-qa-with-renee-di-pilato/

I’ve also written previous posts about banned books, such as the history of banned books and book challenges, along with my various posts for Banned Books Week in 2020.

I found this interesting article from Publisher’s Weekly that discusses what various indie bookstores and organizations are doing for this year’s Banned Books Week

Here are additional resources from the ALA you can check out as well:

Banned Books Week 2022

How To Get Involved

Literacy Resources

Donate to the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom

If you have any additional resources you would like to share about banned and challenged books, feel free to share them in the comments below!

On that note, I will see you tomorrow with a new post for Banned Books Week!

-Erin (:

Top Ten Tuesday: School And Education 🍎

Hello everyone and welcome back to another Top Ten Tuesday!

For this weeks’ prompt, the theme was “School Freebie,” so basically create a list of ten books related to school. I decided to list books that are related to school and education in any form, such as dark academia, non-fiction books about education, and books where a lot of the major plot points revolve around the school/major school events.

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The Stray [Video Game] Book Tag (Original)

Hello everyone and happy Friday! I was worried I wouldn’t get a post up in time this week, but it looks like I managed to squeak one in 👌

ANYWAYS, recently my partner was playing Stray, a dystopian video game where the main character of the game is a cat. I enjoyed watching him play, and since the game was so fun, I decided to go ahead and do a book tag inspired by it!

I’ve made a book tag before, and had fun doing it, so I’m excited to be able to make another one (:

Continue reading “The Stray [Video Game] Book Tag (Original)”

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Love That Were Written Over Ten Years Ago

Hello everyone and happy Top Ten Tuesday!

This week’s prompt is about books that I love that were written over 10 years ago. A lot of These books I enjoyed as a kid or teenager, but some of them I just recently read. Since the title makes this prompt pretty self-explanatory (and I have read plenty of books that are over a decade old), this weeks prompt won’t be too difficult for me. So, on that note, let’s talk about books!

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Creative Dumping Ground #25

Hello and happy Thursday Everyone!

For those of you who may have just started following me, I used to do these Creative Dumping Ground posts quite frequently on my blog, as it allowed me to just throw together a post where I could experiment with different things.

Continue reading “Creative Dumping Ground #25”