Awesome Indies Seal of Approval

 Book of Mercy, Books, Publishing Industry  No Responses »
Jan 142013
 

aiafinalBook of Mercy has received the Awesome Indies Seal of Approval. This is like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval only much better because it’s not about the best board game or a super skillet or an incredible iron. It’s about words and readers and writing.

Awesome Indies is the brainchild of Tahlia Newland, who has drawn together a team of reviewers dedicated to promoting quality in independent publishing. I love these folks because they are demanding that indie books be top-notch in plot and prose.

To be awarded the Awesome Indies Seal of Approval, books must be approved by three qualified reviewers, at least one of which is a regular contributor to the Awesome Indies site, or one of the site’s back-up readers. A  qualified reviewer is defined as: an Awesome Indies recommended reviewer, or someone with a degree in creative writing or English literature, or an author or editor who is or has been employed in that capacity by a well-known traditional publishing house.

If you are looking for some good stuff to read, check out this site.

Newland reviewed Book of Mercy and said:

Book of Mercy is a truly beautiful, heart-warming novel on book censorship, the nature of love, motherhood and friendship. I loved this book from the first page to the end, which had me in tears of joy – I’m a softy. . . . The story strips the issue of censorship down to its bare bones of power and control through showing us the differing perspectives and personalities of the main characters. . . . The ending is perfect and the writing exquisite. I recommend it for everyone and give it 5 stars.”

Thanks, Awesome Indies, for recognizing Book of Mercy. I am truly honored. This is so much better than a skillet.

_____________________

If you like to read about strong women working for their communities, I invite you to explore Antigone Brown, the dyslexic mother-to-be fighting censorship in Book of Mercy, or Maud Calhoun, the artist who loses her muse in Maud’s House.

Viva the Book Traffickers

 Books, Censorship, Reading  No Responses »
Oct 092012
 

Banned Books Week is over, and we can all relax for another year. Our books are safe, or are they? If you live in Arizona, look over your shoulder.

In 2010, Arizona passed a law that says ethnic studies may be barred from Arizona’s public schools for fostering “resentment” of another race. “The law was created to prohibit courses that promote the overthrow of a government,” says author Tony Diaz. In other words, the Arizona law equates ethnic studies with promoting revolution.

In 2012, Diaz and friends started the Librotraficante (Book Traffickers) movement. They gathered together as many donated books as they could get their hands on; stuffed their cars, trucks, and vans with books in Texas; and smuggled them via caravan into Arizona, where they established four underground libraries. Diaz and his band of literature-loving freedom fighters hope to compile one full set of the 85 books confiscated from Tucson classrooms—books that included celebrated Latino writers such as Junot Diaz (Drown) and Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate).

So if we allow a state to censor Mexican-American studies. What’s next? Asian studies, African-American studies? What group will we next decide is dangerous? Vegetarians? Cat lovers?

One More Way to Handle Censorship

Here’s another look at censorship. This offers one solution to those aggravating books that you disagree with:

How to Decorate Your Little Free Library

 Book Marketing, Books, Censorship, Libraries, Reading  2 Responses »
Jul 162012
 

© Jack Mader 2012

Imagine a dollhouse, only it’s not a dollhouse. It’s a library. And instead of homey dollhouse wallpaper, the three walls are covered with three photographs of the interior of your neighborhood library. So opening the doors to your Little Free Library (LFL) is just like walking into your public library. That’s the LFL at  Homewood Studios in north Minneapolis.

This bit of innovative decorating should surprise no one who knows Homewood Studios. Everything at Homewood seems to turn into a community project. The art gallery is owned by George and Beverly Roberts, who are natural community builders and nice people (and I’m not just saying that because I married George’s brother). George is a poet and artist; Beverly is a huge arts supporter and domestic goddess. (As she likes to remind us when we come to dinner, “Of course, it’s good. I have a degree in home economics; I’m a professional.”)

In the case of Homewood’s LFL, neighbor and photographer Bill Cottman took images of the interior of the Sumner Community Library down the street and enlarged them. Jack Mader mounted them on foam board and placed them on the interior walls of the little library. The revitalization of the Sumner Library a few years ago was a massive project that involved many of the people in the community. The Tudor Revival building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was important to create something dedicated to literacy and learning in a neighborhood that makes it into the crime reports far too often.

© Jack Mader 2012

And now there is another place dedicated to literacy and learning. George watches from inside his art gallery and sees children and adults visiting the Homewood LFL every day. Like Sumner, it is a gathering place. This is all it takes to make a difference—just a few big-hearted people and a big idea housed in a small container.

In my novel, Book of Mercy, I wrote about a library created by a bunch of kids and a woman who could not read. Like the LFLs, it was fueled by the people and for the people. My characters were fighting censorship in their town. George, Beverly, and the Homewood neighborhood is fighting illiteracy, despair, and indifference. The rules are simple: bring a book and take a book. But I have a feeling that by having a place like Homewood Studios and the Little Free Library in their backyard, the people there take home more than a book.

FREE eBooks in Stock Up for Summer Sale

 Book Marketing, Book of Mercy, Books, Reading  No Responses »
Jun 102012
 

Summer reading is different from any other reading. It is unrushed. It is guiltless pleasure.  It is often done lounging on a chair at the beach or in a hammock in the backyard instead of wrapped up in five sweaters, your shoulders up to your ears, in front of a winter fire. It is a mental vacation.

I spent one summer reading nothing but John Updike. Whew.

I understand if you have a reading challenge to meet, like getting through the complete collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle before the next season of Sherlock. But you have to take a breather every once in awhile, and when you come up for air, you’re going to want something different. We’ve got just the thing.

Stock Up for Summer Sale

FREE KINDLE Books from 15 of the Hottest Indie Authors
June 14-16

Every genre for your entire family: Literary Fiction, YA, SciFi, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Spy Thriller, Paranormal Romance and Children’s.

Click on the images or links below to go to that book’s Amazon page.

Sherry Roberts, Book of Mercy, Literary Fiction: A woman who cannot read stands up to a town banning books. Midwest Book Awards Finalist.

D.A. Graystone, The Schliemann Legacy, Spy Thriller: A spy thriller involving Nazis, terrorists and the hunt for the treasures of Troy.

Wenona Hulsey, Blood Awakening, Epic Fantasy/Contemporary Romance: Nominated for the Best Adult Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Book of 2011 on Goodreads.

Carmen Caine, The Bedeviled Heart, Medieval Scottish Historical Romance: Romance Silver Medal Winner of the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Zoe Saadia, At Road’s End, Historical Fiction/Historical Romance: A historical romance set in pre-Columbia America.

Scott Mallory, Tales of a Washed-Up Neverwas, Humorous Fiction/Contemporary Fiction: Shocking stories of radio, remorse and revenge.

Faith Mortimer, The Surgeon’s Blade: A chilling addition to the best-selling Diana Rivers mystery thriller series.

Tracy Rozzlynn, Verita, Young Adult Science Fiction/Fantasy: First in a series about the newly discovered planet, Verita.

Tina Boscha, River in the Sea, Teen/Adult Historical Fiction: A tale of first love, tragedy, intrigue and betrayal during the German occupation of the Netherlands.

Gloria Repp, Pibbin the Small, Children/Frogs & Toads: The story of a brave frog launches the Friendship Bog series.

Alan Tucker, A Measure of Disorder, YA Fantasy/Adventure: Book One of the popular Mother-Earth Series.

Charity Parkerson, Wicked Sinners, Paranormal Romance: An ancient book draws a woman into a centuries-old battle between brothers.

Calinda B, A Wicked Choice, Paranormal Romance: Nominated Best Erotic Romance 2012.

Natalie G. Owens, Something to Live for, Paranormal Romance: A short story in the Moonlight Dating series.

Carole Gill, The House on Blackstone Moor, Paranormal: A haunting book set in Victorian England.

Snag some books in your favorite genre and head to the beach or the lake. We’ve got you covered.

Where do you like to read in the summer? Leave a comment then go click away.

Why Not Start Your Own Library?

 Book of Mercy, Books, Libraries, Maud's House, Reading  2 Responses »
Apr 272012
 

The goal is to build more libraries than Andrew Carnegie. That’s 2,510. They don’t have to be big or built of marble or be guarded by massive stone lions. They just have to have books and people who want to read them.

The Little Free Library movement started in 2010 in Hudson, Wisconsin, with a tiny library that resembled a one-room schoolhouse. It could hold about 20 books and was built in memory of teacher and book lover June A. Bol by her son, Todd Bol. The concept was simple: take a book; leave a book. Grow literacy like a flower garden in your own front yard. Place a bench by your library so on a summer evening a neighbor and his grandchild can stop by, grab a book, and sit down right then and there and read it.

This simple idea took off and now there are Little Free Libraries in more than 40 states and 20 countries. You can get plans for building your own little library at the Little Free Library website and see a diverse collection of tiny bibliothéques. They are works of art and as individual as they come.

No Library Cards, No Fines

I love the idea of sharing books with abandon, of no one keeping records or collecting fines. I search for libraries wherever I go, and I delight when I find them in unsuspecting corners, like an old general store in Vermont or a historic lodge in Montana. Someone cared enough about the summer readers or vacationing hikers to pull together an often well-worn collection.

Back when Rubbertoes, my partner, and I were geocacheing every weekend, we actually started our own lending library in a cache by a Minnesota lake. We called it Maud’s House after my first book and stocked it with copies of said book carefully protected in waterproof bags. Geocacheing operates on the same principle as the Little Free Library: take something and leave something. With GPS in hand, our visitors took a book, enjoyed a pleasant hike around a lovely lake, and left behind anything from Mardi Gras beads to a McDonald’s toy. It was a fair trade. Some of them read the book and brought it back for the next reader, while others maybe passed it on, leaving it in some other cache so it could travel the world (like some kind of ceramic gnome).

In my novel Book of Mercy, my protagonist Antigone Brown created her own library, Bookhenge, in response to the censorship in her community:

While the rest of Mercy chained holiday wreaths to their doors and cursed contrary Christmas tree lights, Bookhenge exploded in a spirit of giving. No one kept track of the books; no one supervised what someone else read; no one mutilated the books they didn’t like or agree with; no one plucked the words they found distasteful from the pages with razor blades. There was something pristine about the library Antigone built, something that shone like a beacon that child after child followed to a new land.

Whether you create your library to foil the censors or just to see the smiles on the faces of the kids in your neighborhood, don’t ever think you are doing a small thing. If you can instill one other person with a love for reading, and that person impacts another person, you could start an avalanche. And we need one. According to Statistic Brain, 42% of college students will never read another book after they graduate.

That’s nearly half the population missing out on love and adventure and zombies. Yes, I’ll take readers who love zombies over no readers at all. So let’s give Andrew a run for his money. Build a library.

___________________

Do you have a Little Free Library? Tell us about it. Where have you found libraries in odd places?

If you enjoyed this post, you might like my other writing: Maud’s House, about what happens when a town loses its art; and Book of Mercy, a funny novel about a serious issue: censorship. 

Get Loaded Blog Tour de Force: Get Out Your GPS

 Book of Mercy, Books, Reading  125 Responses »
Jan 262012
 

January 31, 2012: Get Loaded Blog Tour de Force has come to an end. Thank you to all who stopped by and chatted with me on this blog and by email. Please visit my blog again. Also, I’d love to have you friend me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter. A special congratulations to Anita, the winner of the Book of Mercy Gift Basket. The next time you play Bananagrams think of Antigone.

Calling all Sherlocks, Stephanie Plums, Richard Castles, and all you readers/geocachers/scavenger hunters.

It is time for the Get Loaded Blog Tour de Force—the most fun you’ll have on a scavenger hunt all year.

We call it get loaded because we’re going to load up your ereaders with FREE eBooks. And some of you are going to score loads of prizes as well—special gift baskets by the five participating authors and a new Kindle.

Eager to get on the trail?

Get out your GPS (Great Powers of Scavenging) and put in these coordinates:

Why am I doing this tour? Because I want you to meet: Antigone Brown, a women who can’t read and is pregnant with her first child; Irene Crump, president of the Mercy Study Club and determined to rid the town of Mercy of “undesirable” books; and Ryder, a runaway who steals right into Antigone’s heart (and yours, too, I bet).

Basically, it all boils down to a literary smackdown between Antigone and Irene. Who will win? Will censorship prevail in Mercy or will Antigone be able to save the books she can’t read? There’s a secret library involved, a brawl (with pies), hubcap art, boxing deer, and more.

How do you get this must-read? Leave a comment on my blog, during this tour, and I’ll send you a FREE eBook of Book of Mercy. Be sure to leave your email address and what type of eBook you’d like (PDF, Kindle, ePUB format).

Rules of the game:

  • Leave comments on every site of the tour. Use your GPS to hop around the tour. Try to hit every author site. Leave a comment at every site. Each comment earns you a free eBook from that site’s owner AND an entry into the site’s giveaway AND an entry into (drum roll please) the Big Golden Cache at the end: a FREE KINDLE!
  • Find your clues. After you comment, hop over to the Indie Book Collective and get clues for hidden info. While you’re there, sign up for the IBC newsletter and earn 5 MORE ENTRIES for that Kindle.
  • Grab your GPS and start hunting down info.
  • Collect all the info and e-mail your answers at the end of the tour to IBC to earn EXTRA entries for the Kindle drawing.
  • Cheating is allowed. Keep this on the down low, but I will be giving a few hints on Twitter. Follow me at @sherryroberts7 and get some insider info on this super-scavenger hunt.

Prizes:

  • Books, books, books. All of the eBook variety. Collect a FREE eBook at every author’s site. That means you’re hunting for five days, but it’s worth it. A comment on this site earns you an eBook copy of Book of Mercy.
  • Giveaways. Leave a comment at each author’s site and get entered into that author’s special giveaway. What’s in my gift basket? A signed paperback copy of Book of Mercy for your personal library. A dozen of the best cookies on the planet courtesy of Two Smart Cookies (because you won’t be able to put down Book of Mercy and will need nourishment) and a Bananagrams game (in honor of my dyslexic heroine, Antigone, who sees letters mixed up all the time and has to make sense of them). I have to limit this giveaway winner to the U.S. #sorry.
  • Free Kindle. For each comment you leave on my site, you will get one entry into the drawing for the Big Golden Cache at the end: a FREE KINDLE! For every piece of information that you scavenge from the five authors’ sites and take back to the IBC site, you get a Kindle giveaway entry. Sign up for the IBC newsletter and get 5 more entries.

So stuff that ballot box, baby. Scavenge like crazy. Don’t miss a day or a site.

Give a Big Cyber Hug to My Sponsors

Go visit my wonderful sponsors’ sites and leave a comment. These folks do a tremendous service for the reading community. Plus they have interesting stuff to say about books. Bookmark these sites; subscribe to them. Please.

SmartLit

Journey of a Bookseller

Defrosting Cold Cases

Purple Jelly Bean Chair Reviews

Reading Is My Cheap Addiction

A Word about My Tour Mates: Amazing Paranormal Reads

Go back to Day Three: Chelsea Fine’s YA paranormal romance, Anew, presents a conundrum I can honestly say I have never encountered in my long reading life. This is a fresh take on the love triangle, and you’ll find yourself wishing there was a way for everyone—brothers Tristan and Gabriel and lovely Scarlet—to live happily ever after. But first they have to break not one, but three curses. A promising start to the Archers of Avalon series. Bring us more, Chelsea. What are you doing on this tour? You need to be writing.

Get ready for Day Five: Liz Schulte is a talented writer who has woven an intricate plot with an amazingly seductive bad boy (don’t the vulnerable ones get us every time). In Secrets, she alternates first-person chapters between photographer Olivia and mysterious Holden. The world has plans for Olivia. Can she keep from falling into the abyss? Side note: The dream sequences in this book are amazing.

That’s it. So get going. Comment. Scavenge. Cheat all you want. Get those prizes. Get loaded.

Remember: Leave a comment on my blog, during this tour, and I’ll send you a FREE copy of Book of Mercy. Be sure to leave your email address and what type of eBook you’d like (PDF, Kindle, ePUB format). Here’s the question I’d like you to answer: What’s your favorite banned book and why?

12 Shameless Reasons to Shop the Indie Book Blowout

 Book of Mercy, Books, Christmas, Holidays, Kindle, On Writing  22 Responses »
Dec 122011
 

This time of year you are inundated with promotions—every single one of them shameless. I’d like to keep Christmas pristine just as much as the next guy, but what’s an indie author to do? I’ve got birds to feed, kids who need more electronics, and an 81-year-old father expecting something for Christmas.

We’re all—both indie and traditional publishers—fighting for your attention. Hey, you out there in cyberland, yes you, look at me, look at my book (major waving and jumping around). Put down that L.L. Bean catalog and come to the Twelve Days of Christmas Indie Book Blowout.

The Blowout is like that annual book sale you wouldn’t miss for the world, the one held at your church or your local library. Every year you go, slowly making your way down aisles between tables crammed with books. Your neck gets a crick in it from turning at just the right angle to read book titles on old moldy spines. The room smells of books—and excitement. What treasure will you find this year?

The Twelve Days of Christmas Indie Book Blowout is full of treasures. Here are twelve shameless reasons why you should explore it:

  1. The most shameless of the shameless: my new novel, Book of Mercy, is there. Where else will you get a serious topic—censorship—all wrapped up in a funny novel? (There’s pie throwing, a wife who binge drives, a navigationally challenged husband, a villain who wears Prada, hubcap art, and a bad guy who likes Richard Nixon masks.) FOR JUST 99 CENTS. The first three chapters alone are worth that. And once it’s on your Kindle, it’s easy to get to, unlike some partridges in pear trees.
  2. Turtles (not to be confused with turtle doves) are fearful things. They duck back into their shells at the slightest provocation. At the Blowout, you can work on facing your own fears. You WILL find the perfect book for Uncle Harvey or Aunt Rose. There are more than 200 from which to choose—and every book is only 99 cents.
  3. Looking for something foreign? I don’t think there are any books in French or about hens. But you should examine every one, just to make sure.
  4. If you hadn’t read this far, you wouldn’t know that the famous holiday tune actually sings of “colly birds” on the fourth day, not “calling birds.” What’s a colly? It’s a blackbird. In England, a coal mine is called a colliery, and colly refers to something being black like coal. Isn’t it great to learn new stuff? No doubt you will access all kinds of new information in your Blowout books.
  5. I cannot promise you that you will receive five gold rings this Christmas. However, if you shop at the Blowout, you could win a new Kindle. Buy a book and get entered into the giveaway. What will you do with another Kindle? Keep it for yourself and give your old one to your kid.
  6. Don’t lay a goose egg this Christmas. You can give Blowout eBooks to friends and family who don’t even own Kindles. They can download a free Kindle app and read into the wee hours of the morning on their computer, iPad, or smartphone.
  7. Duckling or swan? Shopping at the Blowout will bring out your inner beauty. Because that’s what reading and books do. They grow our spirit, make us laugh, and feed our dreams.
  8. If you’re a maid who has a lot more milking to do before the sun sets and can’t face the mall, simply turn on your computer and head to the Blowout. You can satisfy any reading appetite without leaving your desk: scary horror stuff, fun romances, intriguing mysteries, smart contemporary fiction, mind-blowing paranormal tales, and in-your-face nonfiction (it’s all true, baby). Every book is 99 cents, which fits perfectly into a milkmaid’s budget.
  9. Remember the Black Friday riots: people grabbing toys out of other people’s carts; shoppers shoving, pushing, and pepper spraying? At the Blowout, we are all about decorum. You can act like a lady or a gentleman—and still stuff your stocking to overflowing with Kindle books. Go ahead, do your happy dance now.
  10. Every day of this special sales event, the Blowout will be giving away Amazon gift cards to winners randomly selected from the Indie Book Blowout subscriber database. That ought to set your lords to leaping. Enter the giveaway with each purchase. That’s extra smackeroos to supplement your Christmas budget (or to pack your Kindle with more Blowout deals).
  11. Sorry, there is no music being sold in this holiday promotion. You will have to get your pipers piping elsewhere.
  12. Drum roll, please. This wouldn’t be a shameless list if I didn’t mention my book again. Book of Mercy: a funny novel about a serious issue—censorship. Don’t fall for a book of similar title by some guy named Cohen; that’s poetry. I don’t write poetry, and I don’t sing. But I have always wanted someone to dance me to the end of love.

So let’s get in the shopping, er, holiday spirit. Go to the Twelve Days of Christmas Indie Book Blowout NOW and begin wandering our virtual aisles. The Blowout only lasts from December 12-24, 2011. It is sponsored by the Indie Book Collective, a group of authors who believe readers rock.

Happy holidays and enjoy your books.

_____________________________________

MORE! Check out these blogs by other Indie Book Blowout authors:

Rachel Thompson: Indie Book Blowout Begins!

J. Sterling: Being an Indie Author

Shannon Muir: The 12 Days of Christmas Indie Book Blowout

Abbey MacInnis: Twelve Days of Christmas Event

Ron Vitale: The 12 Days of Christmas Indie Book Blowout

JC Andrijeski: 12 Days of Christmas Indie Book Blowout (with free Kindle and Kindle Fire!)

C.K. Bryant: 12 Days of Christams: Indie Book Blowout!

Themes Are for Disneyland, Not Writers

 Books, Writing  2 Responses »
Nov 062011
 

Themes are for parks like Disneyland, not for books. When it comes to writing,  I prefer to sculpt my stories around an armature.

I came upon this concept in an extraordinary little writing book called Invisible Ink by Brian McDonald. I admit my eyes glaze over when someone even says the word “theme” to me. McDonald noticed the same thing happening with his writing students. So he began looking at story through the eyes of a sculptor. A sculptor builds an armature to act as a skeleton for the artwork. No one ever sees the skeleton or armature, but, without it, the piece would fall apart.

In story crafting, the armature is the idea upon which you hang your story. “It is what you want to say with your piece,” McDonald explained. He uses the old joke about marriage to illustrate: “Marriage is not a word; it’s a sentence.” Although talking about theme can seem like a life sentence with no parole, talking about armature is freeing. Your story is not about a single word—love, friendship, competition, war, revenge. It is a whole sentence, and that sentence or armature gives it shape.

“One way to look at your armature is what is called, in children’s fables, ‘the moral’,” McDonald says. “The armature is your point. Your story is sculpted around this point.” Here are some examples of armatures:

  • Wizard of Oz: There’s no place like home.
  • E.T.: When are you going to grow up and learn how other people feel for a change?
  • Of Mice and Men: People need companionship.

As I was writing my novel, Book of Mercy, I thought all along the theme was censorship. After all, the dylsexic hero Antigone Brown does fight book banning in her town. But upon revision, I discovered again and again that the point of the story was about the lengths parents, or anyone, will go to protect the ones they love. So my armature was “There are more things worth fighting for than you can ever imagine.” 

Revision is when you are really shaping your story around its armature. The beauty of thinking in the simplistic terms of an armature instead of the complicated mess of theme is that, when you are revising your work, you see immediately which scenes stick to the skeleton of your story and make it stronger and which scenes could fall away without any loss to your artistic vision. This is when things get thrilling, even better than riding the world’s craziest roller coaster at an amusement park.

Do you get all tangled up in theme?  What is the one sentence armature of your book?

 

Be Vigilant; Your Books Could Be Next

 Book of Mercy, Books, Censorship, Reading  2 Responses »
Sep 262011
 

I am not a conspiracy nut. I don’t believe I am being watched ALL the time, and I try not to think about what they put in our food. But I am pretty sure that books disappear from the shelves, unless we say something. People never believe you when you maintain that censorship could and does happen. “Book banning here? This is America,” they scoff.

Maybe actual bans are rare in the United States, but it is not for lack of trying. On average, there are about 500 book challenges a year in American libraries, according to the American Library Association. This number goes up or down depending on the political climate and what side of the bed the censors get up on.

That’s why we need Banned Books Week, an annual event sponsored by a number of book-loving organizations including the ALA to a) celebrate the freedom to read, and b) draw attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Banned Books Week is always held during the last week in September, when kids are just starting to hit the books again and parents have more time to read. Here are a few examples of books challenged in 2010-2011 and why:

  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: A parent claimed that it gave her 11-year-old daughter nightmares and could numb other children to the effects of violence.
  • What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Boys: A Guide for Parents and Sons: Banned in 21 schools in Texas after a parent complained. It contains definitions of rape, incest, sexual assault, and intercourse.
  • Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut: Challenged in Republic, MO, schools because it is “soft pornography” and “glorifies drinking, cursing, and premarital sex.”

I have followed the topic of censorship for years as I researched my own novel Book of Mercy. Most censors object to books because of sex, violence, swearing, and “to protect children.” But other times, their reasons are just silly. I used actual challenged books and the actual reasons for their challenges as part of the story in Book of Mercy. (Yes, sometimes you can’t make up this stuff.) Here’s an excerpt in which Study Club President Irene Crump identifies books that should be banned in Mercy.

“The Stupids Step Out,” Irene said. “Describes families in a derogatory manner and might encourage children to disobey their parents.”

Arabella huffed in disgust. “That’s an absurd name for a family, fictional or otherwise. What if Tolstoy had called her Anna Idiot instead of Anna Karenina?”

Arabella got no argument from Irene, who constantly fought the battle for eloquent language with her own children. She thought “suck” should be something you did with a straw, not a description of your homework. . . . 

Irene went on to another book. “A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein. Encourages children to break dishes so they won’t have to dry them . . .”

Julie cleared her throat and attempted a half-hearted smile. “Irene, surely when you were a child, you too hated doing the dishes.”

Irene peered over her glasses at Julie. “We had a maid for that. Even so, there is never an excuse to take a hammer to the Wedgewood.”

America is a free society. Those of us who abhor censorship have to tolerate those who enjoy it, and vice versa. That’s how we know we are free. We have this system of checks and balances. But it is never safe to fall asleep at the wheel.

So be vigilant. Rock Banned Books Week, wear an “I Read Banned Books” button, read something someone else considers salacious. Check out the Banned Books Week Giveaway Hop—you could win books, swag, or gift card moolah. Go to the ALA’s website and find out more about the Banned Books Week Virtual Read-out.

Whatever you do, just don’t sit there. Give books a chance.

“Mom, They’re Banning Books!”

 Book of Mercy, Books, Censorship, Parenting, Reading  2 Responses »
Sep 222011
 

I had been stumbling around in the plot of a book I was writing for some time. I knew the protagonist couldn’t read and that books were disappearing. I was going for some kind of Alice Hoffman magical realism thing. Perhaps with a little humor since my book’s working title was “Too Dark to Read,” after the Groucho Marx quote: “Outside a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.” But then in 1996, my daughter came through the door, crying, “Mom, they’re banning books!”

My daughter was a junior and an IB student in a North Carolina high school. She had a mean forehand and a voracious love for books, including the book in question, The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes. Fuentes is recognized as one of the most influential writers in Latin America. In fact, in 2006, he received the Four Freedoms Award for Freedom of Speech and Expression. Ironic, I know.

My first response was to sit down, read the book, and discuss it with my daughter. It is the story of celebrated American writer and journalist Ambrose Bierce, who mysteriously disapeared in Mexico during its civil war. Fuentes imagines the fate of Bierce among Pancho Villa’s troops in a tale that examines “the borders between men and women, dreams and reality, Mexico and the U.S,” as Publishers Weekly put it.

What the censors in our town (parents of one of the students) objected to were explicit scenes between a young Mexican revolutionary and the American teacher, who falls in love with him. I had no problem with my 17-year-old daughter reading those scenes. But then I’ve never denied my daughter a book she wanted to read.

After an intense public meeting and a review by committee, The Old Gringo eventually was returned to the shelf and the IB curriculum. But in the process, my daughter’s English teacher, a favorite of many of the kids, decided to move on, perhaps to a place where teachers didn’t receive hate mail.

This incident had a huge impact on the direction of my book. Book banning in fictitious Mercy, North Carolina, became the conflict, and Antigone Brown, the woman who fights the censors, ponders the same questions I had as I wrote letters in protest of the removal of The Old Gringo.

All too often, censorship is a parental issue. As Antigone says in Book of Mercy, “I want to protect my child from the world. But I also want to protect the world for my child.”

What I learned in writing this book and in raising my daughter is that books can never be allowed to disappear from the shelves without a squeak. We must say something; explode the discussion in letters, e-mails, tweets, and public meetings. We must never let censorship dissolve into the dark.

According to the American Library Association, on average about five hundred books are challenged every year in the United States—and those are just the ones we know about. Some would say this is horrible. But I think if we didn’t have a way to challenge the actions of others, we wouldn’t be truly free.

So I accept that book challenges are necessary, but I also am happy when they fail.

Book of Mercy, a story about a woman who faces her greatest fear to save a town’s books, is available in paperback and on Kindle. Read more about Book of Mercy or check out an excerpt.

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