This was a busy month at work but I still got to read a pretty good amount! Since Banned Books Week is coming up soon, I’ve decided to read some of the popular ones. At the library that I work at I’ve made a Banned Books display that we’ll have up all month. We’ve done something fun and the books are wrapped in brown craft paper so that you don’t know which Banned Book you’re going to get. We do have labels on them that say if they are YA, adult, or juvenile books as well as a few reasons why the book was banned or challenged. One of the ones that I read this month was Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume.
I don’t think that I’ve read anything by Judy Blume (even though she lives right near the library that I work at…oops). But I thought since this book is one that’s on the Banned Books list almost every. single. year. I thought I would give it a read to see why. And I now know why it’s always banned – teenagers talk about kissing, religion, boys, sex, periods and plenty of other things that teenagers talk about – shocker. I don’t think that there’s anything in it that’s that bad. There are no details when they are talking about boys, sex, or anatomy. The bottom line is, if you don’t want your kid to read something then how about you talk to them about it instead of trying to make it so that no one else can read the book by banning it.
One of the first books that I want to talk about is Hollow by Shannon Watters, Branden Boyer-White, Berenice Nelle, and Kaitlyn Musto. This graphic novel from BOOM! Box will be released on October 4th – less than a month away!
In this graphic novel, we follow Izzy Crane as she moves to a new town. A town that is obsessed with The Headless Horseman. As she trying to make friends and deal with a new school she gets tangled up with the local ghost – the ACTUAL Headless Horseman. Can Izzy and her friends unravel the mystery of the Headless Horseman and save themselves in the process? You’ll have to wait til October 4th to find out!
This was such a great graphic novel and I can’t wait for it to come out so everyone can read it. Highly recommend checking it out when it releases in October! It is the perfect spooky read for the Halloween season.
Next up we have Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin. This is the first in a trilogy (I’m currently reading the next book) set in the twenty-second century where women’s rights have been stripped down to nothing. They have no agency and can do nothing without the approval of a man. Interplanetary commerce with alien’s is how the people of Earth make a living. Almost everything revolves around being able to communicate effectively with the aliens. A small faction of earth’s people, the Linguists, have made a monopoly out of communicating with the aliens. Because of this, the women of the Lines are used to breed perfect communicators – and once they can’t they aren’t of any use and are sent to the Barren House to live out their remaining days among other women. The women of Barren House while away the hours waiting to die by knitting, taking care of the elderly women, and making their own language in order to escape the control of the men.
This is one of the best books that I’ve read this year. A lot of the things that have happened in this book in the way of controlling women seems like it could honestly happen today. It feels like that’s where we’re headed. It was eerie to think that this could be us in another century. The only thing that I take issue with this book is the writing style. It’s clunky and slow – it took me almost a month to read this and it’s not a long book by any means. But the story is so good that I can overlook the clunky writing. I’m only a little bit into the next book in the series but hopefully I’ll finish it and can review it next month for you guys.
Sadly, the next book wasn’t great. Adora and the Distance by Marc Bernardin, Ariela Kristantina, Jessica Kholinne, and Bernardo Brice follows Adora on her adventures.
This book had such a fun sounding premise and I was really excited to read it. Going into it, I hadn’t read any reviews so I was very blindsided by the twist ending. Which I’m going to spoil so if you want to read this (I don’t recommend it) turn away now. We go through this fun journey where all these things happen like pirates and ghost and plenty of other fantastical things just to find out that none of it was real and it was all a metaphor for Adora having autism???? It seemed like such a slap in the face to reduce everything to just be like “We fooled you it was autism all along!”. This is such a great example of people who don’t have a disorder or illness not understanding what good representation in media is about. There are a lot of better reviews that are done by readers who are autistic that you can check out here on Goodreads.
Old Man Quill Volumes 1 & 2 by Ethan Sacks, Robert Gill, Ibraim Roberson, Andres Mossa, and Joe Caramagna. I’ve never read a single Guardians of the Galaxy comic book before this so I knew nothing about Peter Quill’s life. In the first volume, the Guardians get Quill out of retirement for one more job. This volume was a pretty standard heist where the Guardians are trying to find a weapon to stop the Universal Church. Volume two has Quill finally getting to the place where the weapon is being held. But does he have anything left to be able to get the weapon and stop the Universal Church? You’ll have to read this to find out! I really recommend checking these two volumes out – they were so good!
Do you like to cry? Would you like to read a story that rips your heart out? Well I’ve got the story for you! White Bird by R.J. Palacio takes place in the the Wonder universe (which I haven’t read yet). It centers around the bully from Wonder, Julian, but this story is actually about his grandmother telling him about when she was a girl in Nazi occupied France. It was gut wrenching to say the least. I think that everyone should read a book like this. Another great one is They Called Us Enemy by George Takei. These books really open up your eyes to other people’s experiences.
Folklords by Matt Kindt and Matt Smith was one of my favorite graphic novels that I read in August. I really enjoyed the story and the artwork was fantastic too. In this book we follow Ansel as he turns 18 and embarks on a quest. In a world that has magic and fairies, Ansel is plagued by visions of modern technology – cell phones, clothes with zippers, lighters. His quest is to find the legendary Folklords and he hopes that they can help him understand his visions. But is he willing to sacrifice everything that he’s ever known in order to figure out what’s going on?
I loved this. It was such a great graphic novel and I really with there was more in this universe. There’s just so much potential for all these great stories that could be told with the various characters.
That is it for this month! I hope you guys had a great August. I’m really looking forward to the cooler weather. The AC in my car is broken and it’s HOT in Florida. I can’t wait for it to cool down some. I’m also back in college after twelve years working on getting my Bachelor’s Degree and then I’ll be getting my Master’s in Library Science. It’s been fun so far. I really like college and learning, I wish I could do it forever and have it just be my full time job. But anyway, I’ll keep you guys posted on school and how my classes are going. See you next month!
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