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Booklists Recommendations

Banned Books Week 2020

by Adult Services Library Associate Nichole

Banned Books Week was launched in the 1980s, a time of increased challenges, organized protests, and the Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982) Supreme Court case, which ruled that school officials can’t ban books in libraries simply because of their content.

While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read.

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

Every year, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles a list of the top 10 challenged books to bring to light censorship that still plagues libraries and schools.

Of the 566 books that were targeted, here are the most challenged, along with the reasons cited for censoring the book:

  • George by Alex Gino | print / digital
    • Reasons: for LGBTQIA+ content and a transgender character; for sexual references; and for conflicting with a religious viewpoint and “traditional family structure”
  • Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin | print / digital
    • Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, for “its effect on any young people who would read it,” and for concerns that it was sexually explicit and biased
  • A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss, illustrated by EG Keller | print / digital
    • Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content and political viewpoints, for concerns that it is “designed to pollute the morals of its readers,” and for not including a content warning
  • Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg, illustrated by Fiona Smyth | print / digital
    • Reasons:  LGBTQIA+ content; for discussing gender identity and sex education; and for concerns that the title and illustrations were “inappropriate”
  • Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack, illustrated by Stevie Lewis | print
    • Reasons: featuring a gay marriage and LGBTQIA+ content; for being “a deliberate attempt to indoctrinate young children” with the potential to cause confusion, curiosity, and gender dysphoria; and for conflicting with a religious viewpoint
  • I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas | print
    • Reasons:  LGBTQIA+ content, for a transgender character, and for confronting a topic that is “sensitive, controversial, and politically charged”
  • The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood | print / digital
    • Reasons: profanity and for “vulgarity and sexual overtones”
  • Drama written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier | print / digital
    • Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content and for concerns that it goes against “family values/morals”
  • Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling | print / digital
    • Reasons: referring to magic and witchcraft, for containing actual curses and spells, and for characters that use “nefarious means” to attain goals
  • And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson illustrated by Henry Cole | print / digital
    • Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content

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Booklists BPL News & Information Online Resources Recommendations

Gear Up for the 2020 Election

by Adult Services Library Associate Beth

Election Day 2020 is now a mere 43 days away. Somehow this seems like both a lifetime away and, well, tomorrow. Regardless of how you plan to vote this November, Bexley Public Library is here to help! To encourage everyone in the community to exercise one of their most fundamental rights, we are hosting two drive-in voter registration events with The League of Women Voters on Tuesday, (TOMORROW!) September 22 from 3-5PM and Thursday, October 1 from 5-7PM. Both events will be held in the BPL parking lot and will also feature musical guests and food trucks. Join us as we celebrate – maybe not the election itself, but at least our ability to have a say in its outcome! And be sure to visit http://bexleylibrary.org/vote or give us a call at 614-231-2793 to get more information on deadlines, procedures, accessing voting materials, etc.

In the spirit of the election season, I’ve composed a list of some of my favorite “political” (I’m using that term in a fairly broad sense) books. And while this list is attached to a post about preparing for the upcoming election, I’ve chosen books that, I think, are largely non-partisan, and don’t focus much on presidential elections or candidates. Rather, they’re books that have helped me better understand and refine my own political worldview, while also helping me better understand those views I may not agree with. Importantly, several of these books put the struggles and concerns of real people at their centers: in my mind, what politics should always be about. Such stories help us build empathy for, and an understanding of people who aren’t always politically aligned with us already. Happy reading! 

  • The Populist’s Guide to 2020: A New Right and New Left are Rising  by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti | print
  • Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis | print / digital
  • Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Hedges and Sacco | print
  • With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald | print
  • Strangers in their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild | print / digital
  • Hate Inc. by Matt Taibbi | print / digital
  • We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America by Jennifer M. Silva | print / digital (e-audiobook only)
  • Palaces for the People by Eric Klinenberg | print / digital
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Booklists Recommendations

Latinx Heritage Month

by Adult Services Library Associate Nichole

Did you know that tomorrow, September 15th kicks of National Hispanic Heritage Month?

“The observation started in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period starting on September 15 and ending on October 15.

The day of September 15 is significant because it is the anniversary of independence for Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September 18, respectively. Also, Columbus Day or Día de la Raza, which is October 12, falls within this 30 day period.”

https://www.hispanicheritagemonth.gov/about/

To celebrate, check out these titles written by Latinx authors!

  • Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher | print
  • It Is Wood, It Is Stone by Gabriella Burnham | print
  • Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin |print / digital
  • Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat |print / digital
  • Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia | print / digital
  • A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende | print / digital
  • Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo |print / digital
  • In the Country We Love by Diane Guerrero | print / digital 
  • A Cup of Water Under My Bed by Daisy Hernandez | print / digital
  • Music to My Years by Cristela Alonzo | print
  • In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado | print / digital
  • Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Díaz | print / digital

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Recommendations Staff Book Reviews

The Overstory by Richard Powers

by Adult Services Librarian Jeff

The Overstory by Richard Powers is a lot of things, possibly too many, at once. But perhaps its most impressive achievement is how it decenters the human experience while simultaneously unfurling a compelling, complex, and ultimately human storyline via its nine main characters. Being a work of environmental fiction, and in particular being tree-centric, it’s not farfetched to expect a fairly breezy, peaceful read with the end result of appreciating nature a bit more. In reality, The Overstory is fraught with traumatic events and incisive critiques of our relationship with nature.

The Overstory is split into four sections: Roots, Trunk, Crown, and Seeds. In Roots, each of the main characters are introduced via a short story-esque passage that ultimately reveals the role trees play (or have played) in their lives. These range all the way from a dendrologist (someone who studies trees/wooded plants) to a young couple who, for much of their lives, don’t pay any attention to trees. In the book’s second section, Trunk, the narrative hops between storylines and the characters’ stories intertwine in various interesting ways, primarily by means of environmental activism. In Crown and Seeds, the fallout from the narrative climax unravels and the story draws to a close.

Tonally, The Overstory is alternately enchanting and disheartening. Passages describing the social nature of trees and how they communicate with one another inspire awe, but this awe is quickly eroded when reading about the sobering environmental devastation of logging, particularly in old-growth areas like the redwood forests in California. This frames one of the central conflicts of the book: environmental activists versus logging companies. And as the book is set in capitalist America, the victor of these confrontations isn’t exactly a surprise.

It’s difficult to overstate just how much is packed into the 500 or so pages of The Overstory. Existential meditations about humanity’s place on Earth, ruminations on the future of artificial intelligence- it is truly much more than a book about trees. Because of this, the book can teeter toward melodrama, and it loses a bit of steam toward the end. It can also be an exceptionally difficult read emotionally, as a human being and as a consumer. However, in a time where the consequences of climate change ominously loom in our everyday lives, the perspective Richard Powers offers is both welcome and utterly paramount.


For fans of Literary Fiction and Environmental Fiction, including Greenwood by Michael Christie and Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

You can request The Overstory digitally through Overdrive, or request a physical copy or audiobook through the BPL catalog.

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Staff Book Reviews

Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne

by Adult Services Library Associate Christian

“Find a city. Find myself a city to live in.”

Is what David Byrne yelps in the song “Cities” off of Talking Heads’s classic 1979 record, Fear Of Music. And similarly to the tune of his band’s hit song, he lives through the cities of the world in his 2009 book Bicycle Diaries. Inspired by the works of W.G. Sebald and tour life, Bicycle Diaries, is a reflection of viewing different parts of the world through the most quick and reflective mode of transportation, a bicycle. The diaries contain Byrne’s views on urban infrastructure, bicycling, Robert Moses, the history and culture of the respective cities, and so much more.

Continue reading “Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne”
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Bexley History Booklists Recommendations

Bexley Women in the Fight for Suffrage

by Local History Librarian David Distelhorst

Columbus Evening Dispatch, September 2, 1912

Dressed in the costume of an English Militant Suffragette, Mrs William Drake Hamilton, the former Ann Eliza Deshler, attended a celebration carrying a can of nitroglycerin, bricks, and bombs. Her husband, Dr. William Drake Hamilton, dressed as a “suffrage sympathizer,” carried a vote for women banner.

It was the 1910s and Ann Hamilton and her sister, Miss Martha Deshler, members of the Taxpayers’ League, an organization seeking equal suffrage, were among Bexley’s women in the fight for full enfranchisement. The daughters of Deshler Bank President John G. Deshler, whose home was at the corner of Parkview and East Broad Street, hosted suffrage meetings and dignitaries in Hamilton’s Bexley home. 

The sisters, among those successful at petitioning Ohio’s Fourth Constitutional Convention to put the issue of equal suffrage before the voters, lost their fight in 1912, and when the votes were tallied Bexley proved “a non-suffrage town.”

Again, two years later, Ohio voters said no, but another Bexley pair had their eyes on a national amendment. Miss Florence Ralston, daughter of Ralston Steel Car Company President Joseph S. Ralston, who like the Hamilton’s lived on East Broad Street in Bexley, joined the College Equal Suffrage League as a student at Ohio State. In 1916 Florence and her mother attended the formation, in Washington D.C, of the National Women’s Party.

The mother and daughter pair were among those representing the local branch of the National Women’s Party at a 1918 meeting with then Senator Warren G. Harding at Columbus’ Southern Hotel. Though Harding did not fully commit to suffrage attendees were “encouraged” that a federal amendment would pass.

That October Senator Harding voted in favor of the Federal Suffrage Amendment, as he did in February and June of the following year. Ratified by the Ohio legislature on June 16, 1919 the women’s right to vote saw final ratification as the 19th Amendment in August of 1920.

For more about the history of the Women’s Suffrage Movement explore these titles recommended by Adult Services Librarian Sue Shipe-Giles:

Research for this article contributed by Scott King-Owen, Ph.D, Teacher, Bexley City Schools.

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Booklists Recommendations

Rom-Coms With a Side of Horror

by Adult Services Library Associate Nichole

If you’re anything like me, Covid-19 has you in a serious reading and viewing slump. If it’s not light and enjoyable, I just can’t get into it. My go-to reading and viewing genre has been romantic comedies, with the occasional horror thrown in. Balance, right?

Sometimes I’m lucky enough to find a horror comedy and all is well in the world. Libby/Overdrive and Hoopla Digital have been lifesaving during this time, and I want to share with you the books and movies that have made life a little sweeter for me over the past few months. 

Happy reading AND viewing! 

*all titles are available digitally through Libby/Overdrive and Hoopla or physically through the BPL catalog*

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Booklists Staff Book Reviews Virtual Book Club

Now That You’ve Read The Yellow House…

by Adult Services Library Associate Beth

So you’ve just finished reading The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom, and wonder, “What’s next?” Well, first things first: register for one of the BPL Virtual Book Club discussions, scheduled for August 12th at 7pm and August 15th at 11:30am! Also, be sure to check out the BPL-hosted lecture and discussion with Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries of OSU about the intersections of race, class, and Hurricane Katrina. Find this recorded discussion on our Facebook page, YouTube, or the audio version on Podbean.

And after that, if you’re interested in further exploring some of the themes and topics discussed in the book, check out this short list of recommended things to read, watch and listen to. Note that this list includes only things from my own media bubble that I have read, etc., so it is in no way comprehensive. Further, there are many, many other themes this does not cover (issues such as environmental racism/classism and gentrification, just to name a few), so it barely even scratches the surface. But, as always, you can ask BPL librarians for more recommendations on these and related topics! 

Housing

“The case of the Willow Street house did not come up again, but I continue to think of it as strange irony for Mom who, of all the things she ever desired, wanted to make a new world with Ivory Mae rules. That is what it meant for her to own a house.”

Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

“It was clear that the French Quarter and its surrounds was the epicenter. In a city that care supposedly forgot, it was one of the spots where care had been taken, where the money was spent. Those tourists passing through were the people and the stories deemed to matter.”

Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House
  • Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
    • Evicted follows eight families in Milwaukee in their struggle to maintain housing. Desmond explores how a single eviction keeps individuals and families caught in a vicious cycle of poverty, exploitation and insecure housing.
  • The Florida Project
    • The way Broom writes about the New Orleans French Quarter, a section of the city known for revelry and overabundance, reminded me so much of Sean Baker’s film, as it examines poverty and homelessness in the shadow of Disney World. 
  • “The Lost Homes of Detroit” (Reveal Podcast)
    • Told in the intersection of race and class, this podcast episode discusses the foreclosure crisis in the aftermath of the 2008 recession in Detroit, Michigan. Investigators discover that hundreds of millions of dollars of property taxes that were charged to homeowners (for which, the failure to pay resulted in these foreclosures), shouldn’t have been charged in the first place. The podcast forces us to confront what mass foreclosure does not only to the individuals who lose their homes, but also how a community can survive in its wake.

The Storm and the Aftermath

“The government-funded Road Home, intended as a path back into lost homes for the displaced, was frozen in bureaucracy amid heated debates and politicizing about which areas of the city were worth rebuilding.”

Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House
  • The Storm; The Old Man and the Storm; Law & Disorder
    • This collection of Frontline documentaries cover, respectively, the governmental response leading up to and in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, one elderly man’s determination in rebuilding his home after it was destroyed in the storm, and police misconduct in the midst of the chaos.
  • Business of Disaster
    • Frontline’s (if you couldn’t already tell, I love Frontline) investigation into FEMA’s flood protection insurance system explores the profits involved in the insurance system and the failures of the NYC post- Hurricane Sandy ‘Build It Back’ program – a program similar to the Road Home program to rebuild homes destroyed in Katrina.

Levees and Flooding

“This story, that the levees were blown, the poorest used as sacrificial lambs, would survive and be revived through the generations.”

Sarah M. Broom, The Yellow House

The following explore the politics, failures, and inequities of levee systems across cities in Missouri and Illinois. The last article also explores how climate change, by contributing to rising sea levels and the loss of wetlands in Louisiana, will mean increasing the frequency and destructive capacity of flooding.

What would you recommend to fellow readers of The Yellow House? Leave a comment on the social media post to share with the library community!

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Booklists Staff Book Reviews

What I’m Reading Next

by Adult Services Library Associate Debbie

One of the best problems to have is too many wonderful books to read. For a  bookworm like myself to work in a library is a bit like being a kid in a candy store. I have bunches of books I’m looking forward to reading and I thought I would share a few of them.  

I’ve been meaning to read one of Laura Zigman’s books forever- she has a great reputation for writing funny, poignant novels with very relatable characters. I was hooked after I read the premise for Separation Anxiety – a middle aged Mom who suddenly, impulsively starts wearing an old baby sling and carrying the family dog around in it to the shock and surprise of her family and friends.

Speaking of hooks, I’m a fool for a good book hook and Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel has a doozy.  Rose Gold Watts was terribly sick for the first eighteen years of her life and the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her.  But it turns out that nothing was – her Mother was just a really good liar.  Now her Mother is getting out of prison and the town is stunned when Rose Gold opens her home to her. Has her Mother forgiven Rose for testifying against her? But Rose is no longer an invalid and she has been waiting such a long time for her Mother to come home.  It gives me chills!  I’m eager to see if Darling Rose Gold delivers the psychological twists and turns that it promises.

Long Bright River by Liz Moore is a mystery novel about two sisters; Mickey is a cop and patrols the streets and Kasey is in the grip of addiction and lives on the streets. The two sisters are estranged but when Kasey disappears Mickey is driven to find her.  I enjoy mysteries and this type really appeals to me – soulful, thoughtful mysteries that delve deep into their characters.  The central mystery isn’t as important as the mystery in the hearts of the characters.

The cover for Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown made me do a double take – red cover, 1950s image of a housewife holding a knife and teeny little skulls.  I couldn’t resist.  The story of Alice,a modern day woman who finds cookbook notes and letters from a 1950s housewife – the cookbook has a sunny, perfect housewife outlook and the letters tell the real, darker side of her story. Alice starts to see uncomfortable parallels between her life and that of the ‘50s housewife who felt suffocated by her role and her marriage.  Will Alice change her life? The little skulls hint that the solution might be darker than simple self-improvement. There is only one way to find out!

A delightful summer treat that I’m about to bite into is Take a hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert.  This novel is the second in a rom-com series about three sisters; the first one Get a Life, Chloe Brown was the perfect romantic confection – lovable characters, witty banter, adorable moments and great sizzle and I’m hoping the second is as good as the first. In the second novel Danika Brown is a hyper focused PhD student and has given up on relationships aside from the occasional fling; big, brooding security guard and former rugby star Zafir Ansari is a secret romantic and a workplace fire drill gone wrong throws the two together.  Will Dani seduce Zaf? Will Zaf win over Dani to romance? I can barely wait to find out!

I hope you’re enjoying your own summer reads and as always, Happy Reading!

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Booklists

Multiracial Family Reading List

by Adult Services Librarian Sue Shipe-Giles

Raising my two multiracial children for the past twenty-plus years has proved challenging. During this time, we have each encountered a variety of discrimination and misunderstandings. I have been ostracized by other school moms and even harassed by an employer once they met my husband. My son was bullied starting in preschool, while my daughter has had to “prove” on many occasions to classmates, and once even to a teacher, that her dad is really her father.

Continue reading “Multiracial Family Reading List”