Thomas Paine was many things: author, radical, inventor, intellectual, and revolutionary; but he was also considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. His 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense, was considered so influential to the American revolutionary cause that it was reportedly said at the time that “without...
On Thursday, August 11, 2011, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once again made headlines, but it wasn’t for literary accomplishment or news of a long-lost Sherlock Holmes crime buster. He, instead, found himself on newswires around the world for having one of his books banned. This isn’t the first time...
The Giving Tree is one of the most affectionate, oft-quoted, and beloved children’s stories of all time; A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends are many a child’s first introduction to poetry. These books have endured because Silverstein paints a whimsical world of fantasy that...
What Mark Twain was to the 19th century, Kurt Vonnegut was to the 20th. Both are among the finest examples of the American Satirists. He was, and is, a beloved fixture of American literature. When Vonnegut died in 2007, members of the Alplaus Volunteer Fire Department in New York...
The 1865 work by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll was a pseudonym) about a girl’s trip into a fantasy world has been of tremendous influence on literature and music, and a mainstay of animated and feature adaptations for generations. It is widely considered to be one of the best...
Published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is Jack London’s most-read book, and is generally considered his best, hailed as the masterpiece of his “early period.” Critic Maxwell Geismar, in 1960, referred to The Call of the Wild as “a beautiful prose poem,” and Editor Franklin Walker said...
1984, written in 1948 by George Orwell, tells the tale of a society in the year 1984 that is under constant war, and ruled by a dictatorship that uses tight surveillance and mind control to police its populace. The main character, Winston Smith, is a civil servant of the...
With the final theatrical installment being released worldwide this week, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to discuss THE most banned book (collectively) of the 21st century according to the American Library Association– the Harry Potterseries; the first four books are, as a group, at #7 for the most...
Soon, in the not-too-distant future, when the book burners finally get their way, life will become monotonous and bland. In this very real and likely future world all thought, all individuality, all creativity will cease to exist because the self-righteous morality police will have run out of things to...
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian details Arnold’s life on the Spokane Indian Reservation and his decision to go to an all-white high school in another town for a chance at a better education. This is the story of a boy struggling with a decision to leave...