Some call it fan fiction, while others call it “mommy porn;” but the fact is that whatever you call it, Fifty Shades of Grey, a New York Times #1 bestselling novel by E. L. James, has become an international hit. The trilogy was originally conceived as fan fiction based on characters from...
For the third time in recent weeks the Banned Books Awareness series once again focuses on some rather disturbing trends from Canada. Incidents of censorship by the border patrol, negative reactions to fiction based on historical documents, and now it seems Dr. Seuss has been branded too political for the classroom....
Last Thursday (4/19/2012), the Annville-Cleona School Board in Pennsylvania voted 8-0 to remove an award-winning children’s book, The Dirty Cowboy, by Amy Timberlake, from its elementary schools after a student’s parents objected to its illustrations. Read on and share the Knowledge: http://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/column/2012/04/23/banned-books-awareness-the-dirty-cowboy/
Lawrence Hill wrote one of the bestselling and most-popular Canadian novels of all time; but what does he do for an encore? Hill, who will be in Edmonton this coming Tuesday (4/17/12) to deliver the University of Alberta’s annual Henry Kreisel lecture, knows how to follow up a smash...
Just two days before Deborah Merrick, Branch Manager at Merritt Library in British Columbia, was scheduled to burn banned books, members of the community came forward to stop her. “People came in and said they didn’t want any books burned,” Merrick said. “I didn’t have a single person come...
As orca attacks on trainers become increasingly violent, the warnings of Rose and other scientists fall on deaf ears, only to be realized with Brancheau’s death. Kirby covers the media backlash, the eyewitnesses who come forward to refute SeaWorld’s PR spin, and the groundbreaking OSHA case that challenged the...
The wit of cartoonists like Tom Toles, Mike Thompson, and the widely-popular Doonesbury strip by Gary Trudeau have amused and engaged readers for decades with their humorous take on the issues and subjects of the day, often poking fun at both sides of the debates. Doonesbury is well known...
The “Internet Girls”, also refered to as the “IM” series, is a trilogy by American author Lauren Myracle written between 2005 and 2008. The Young Adult series consisting of TTYL (2005), TTFN (2007), and L8R, G8R (2008) follows the lives of three friends- Zoe, Maddie, and Angela- as they...
Referred to as “Watergate at the high school level” by attendees of the National Council of Teachers of English during a 1975 convention, at its core The Chocolate War (1974) is a brilliantly-crafted novel that focuses on the issues of conformity and the use of coercion to enforce cultural norms. A New...
March is National Reading and Grammar Month here in the United States. It is built around the birthday of Dr. Seuss, as March 2 is honored with a National Read Across America Day. Libraries and schools from coast to coast held reading parties and celebrated the written word; but...