Do You NaNo?: find out more about national writing month!

Calling all writing fans!  Whether you've been writing for years or just have some fantastic ideas for a story that you never had time to put on paper, here's some great motivation to sit down and plug out that novel you've always wanted to write.  November is National Novel Writing Month (or 'NaNoWriMo' for short), a time when writers across the world challenge themselves to come up with 50,000 words worth of a novel in the space of thirty days.



This may sound a bit crazy at first.  Fifty thousand words in thirty days is no slouch, especially if you're balancing school, a job, or any sort of life at all.  But what better way to make yourself finish a project than setting a deadline and sticking to it?  Many writers can tell you how hard it can be to find the motivation to not just start writing a novel, but plowing through the stress and self-doubt of actually finishing it.  Through NaNo's website, writers find a community of support where they can trade ideas, encouragement, and review each other's work.

Interested in signing up, or just checking out what all the fuss is about?  Check out their website here, take a look around and set up a free account!

Book Review: Mercy by Julie Garwood

Reviewed by Jennifer Turner


Plot: Theo and Michelle (Mike), the lovers and main characters of the story, have an interesting meeting which involves him regurgitating his food upon her expensive dress.  She ends up performing surgery on him, not knowing that they will meet up again soon.

The Sowing Club - a group of twisted people who started off committing white collar crimes just to gain money, but end up being some hard-edged, murderous and dangerous people - seek to kill Michelle because one member killed his wife with his greed.  The wife was smarter than anyone gave her credit for; she had information that endangered the club as a whole and could send them to prison.

Review: An eye-catching, action-packed, heart throbbing, lovesick romance... sounds like a cheesy advertisement for a movie.  Mercy is a mystery-romance that leads you by the nose, giving the appearance that this is going to be an average romance story - nothing new or captivating about it.  Well, not quite true - the book does start with a slow pace for a few chapters, but once the storyline progresses the romance and action blossom.  The story will hold you in captivation for many hours without being able to stop once the first page has been turned.  With all the murdering, twists, turns, and shocks, the story ends like a dream; everyone got what each earned, whether death, love, marriage or jail.

Check it Out: You can find this book on the Flint Campus, listed under FIC GAR.  If you're a student on another SCTC campus and still want to check this book out, you can fill out an Interlibrary Loan request form to have it sent to you!

Interested in writing a book review for the library blog?  Contact Teresa Nesbitt at tnesbitt@sctech.edu for more information!

Banned Book of the Day: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it." - Mark Twain

Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn couldn't catch a break from the very beginning.  As early as 1885, the book was locked out of library collections for using slang - imagine, the scandal of a book that used "sweat" instead of "perspiration"!

Today, this kind of reasoning seems crazy.  But Huckleberry Finn is still getting heat today.  A school in Arizona was sued for making the book required reading, and a recent publication of the book has censored certain words.

So what's the fuss?  This book is a classic; why a lawsuit to keep it out of schools?

The answer is: the "n-word."  Commonly used in Twain's time, the term has incredibly offensive connotations today; the parents of Tempe, Arizona didn't want their children exposed to that kind of language.  The repetition of the word has been enough to make some English teachers hesitate to use Huckleberry Finn in class.

This debate is especially interesting considering Twain's strong disgust for racism; he would probably be horrified if he knew Huckleberry Finn was being taken as racially offensive.  

So what's in a word?  Should an entire book be dismissed for using language no longer acceptable today?  Is it better to censor the "n-word" out of the book and sanitize it by today's standards, or is it important to remember a terrible part of America's history when racism was a natural part of life? 

Banned Book of the Day: And Tango Makes Three

As we covered yesterday in our post on Harry Potter, children's books are a big target for banning.  Adults worry about the influence books will have on their children and the way they see the world.  Today we're looking at another kid's book - And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell.

Looking at the cover, it's hard to see why this book - based on a true story of a family of penguins in the Central Park Zoo - should cause such a fuss.  Why is this book the fourth most-banned of the last decade?

The answer?  Silo and Roy, the two penguins who fall in love and adopt a baby over the course of the story, are both male penguins.  Once their story hit the shelves, it was targeted for "promoting a homosexual lifestyle," and schools warred over whether or not it should be included in library collections.  While some parents felt the book didn't contain information that was necessary or appropriate for school children, others felt this book was a great way to introduce their kids to different types of families and loving home environments - and gay parents found it was a story that their kids could relate to.

If you haven't read And Tango Makes Three, you can check out a reading of the book in the video above.  What do you think?

Banned Book of the Day: the Harry Potter series

Book burning!  Setting books on fire is a sure way to make a statement - just ask Pastor Terry Jones in Gainesville, FL.  But the Qu'ran isn't the only book that barely escaped the flames this past decade in America- did you know that in 2001, the Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling was nearly set ablaze in a small town in Maine?  The fire department swept in to save the day - only to see the books get chopped up with scissors.

Why so much rage over such a popular, well-loved book?  For the parents of Lewiston, Maine, the answer was clear: Harry Potter was promoting witchcraft and devil worship.

Lewiston isn't the only town to object to Harry Potter.  The series faced challenges in schools across the country - some successful, and some not.

The argument to kick England's favorite wizard out of American schools is one we hear again and again in book challenges: Protect the children! These parents are asking libraries to be gatekeepers, monitoring what people read.

What do you think?  Should librarians guard what information comes in and out of the library?  Or should parents - not librarians - be responsible for what they want their kids to read?

Book Review: The Blessing by Jude Deveraux

Reviewed by Jennifer Turner
Score: 3.5/5

Background information:  Amy is a poor but proud widow and single mother living in a small town in Kentucky.  Jason Wilding is a millionaire who lived in the town as a child.  Jason's brother, David, tricks him into returning to the town.  David is in love with Amy, but Amy is so busy with her infant son, Max, that she will not date.  David cons Jason into being a short term live-in nanny for Max.

Review: From a rating of five stars, this book would be 3.5 out of 5.  The book was good reading material.  The story captures you right in the beginning; the humor and romance captivate your attention.  Jason pretending to be gay while being attracted to Amy is too amusing.  Amy may live in poverty and with the pride of ten men, but her character is someone you can relate to with her simple pleasure of receiving simple things and working hard to earn what she wants.  Jason may have worked to gain what he earned, but with time he became too comfortable in his money, assuming everything can be bought to make someone happy.  The story is simple, sweet, and bittersweet in ways.  If you are a hopeless romantic thinking a woman will meet her knight in armor, I'm sorry to say it does not quite go that way.  The book has its own modern twist of two lovers separated between lies, pride and love.  But happily, it finally comes to a Cinderella-meets-prince ending.

Check it out: You can find this book at the Flint Campus, listed under FIC DEVE.
Are you a student at another campus, but still want to check it out?  Fill out an Interlibrary Loan Form to have the book sent to you!


Interested in writing a book review for the library blog?  Contact Teresa Nesbitt at tnesbitt@sctech.edu for more information!

Test your Banned Books knowledge!

What makes To Kill a Mockingbird such a controversial book?  And which Roald Dahl books have made the top 100 banned books list?

Know the answer to these questions, or curious to find out?  Take this quick 9 question banned books quiz!  You can also win a 20% discount at Books-A-Million or Bookland by printing out your quiz score and bringing it to the library front desk.

Channel 1 Banned Books Quiz