I am humbled and honored by all of the positive reactions across the country and around the world for my Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge series about censorship. The comments and the discussions are fun and informative and nothing short of amazing. I’ve even ruffled a few...
Freedom of expression and thought is a fundamental human right, and is so important that it is the first amendment to the United States Constitution, yet there are those who would deny that right because some ideas that are expressed by others are contrary to their personal opinions. The...
Gary Paulsen has written over 200 books in his career. Most of those novels are junior-high-level stories that center on the wilderness and the importance of nature, and use common “coming of age” themes where a character in isolation must use the art of survival as a rite of...
Well wouldn’t you know it? Yet another of America’s legendary Founding Fathers has had their written work banned by the same citizenry that purports to idolize them. Benjamin Franklin’s life story was published in France under the title “Mémoires de la vie privée de Benjamin Franklin”(The Private Life of...
We all grew up with the lyrical children’s books by Theodor Seuss Geisel, otherwise known as the immortal Dr. Seuss. His imaginative characters and trisyllabic meter rhymes gave us bestselling books like Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue...
This morning, while doing a casual web search for banned books graphics, I came across my own logo for BBARK by surprise. I saw that it was posted by a library, so I interestingly followed the link and discovered that it was for a public library in Ontario, Canada...
Reminder that in addition to being a sponsor again for the annual Midwest Witches’ Ball on October 15, 2011, I will also be one of the vendors at the first ever Witches’ Bazaar! The Ball is sold out- more than 500 attending this annual black tie gala; but the...
He was the third President of the United States, the most intellectual figure in shaping America’s early history, and a voice of reason in his own time as well as today. The thought is enough to imagine him rolling in his grave, but, like fellow Founding Father, Thomas Paine,...
Well here we are in September already. Where has the summer gone? The days are getting gradually shorter, many people are out having picnics and fun over the Labor Day weekend festivities as the weather gets progressively milder, and students around the country prepare to head back to school....