Mundie Moms

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Mundie Moms Author Chat with Firelight's Sophie Jordan

Tonight we're celebrating our 50th Author Chat and chatting with Sophie Jordan, author of Firelight!! We will hold all SPOILER discussions until the end of the chat. I will give a warning before the spoiler talk begins.

**Sophie Jordan will be GIVING-AWAY a SIGNED copy of Firelight tonight!!**
Please fill out the entry form to be entered to win. The winner WILL BE announced DURING THE CHAT.


*Our chat will start at 8 pm CST/ 9 pm EST. To join, hit join and enter a screen name.

*Please know that we will be discussing Firelight by Sophie Jordan!

*We do our best to make sure all comments are published, so that Sophie can answer your questions. With the high volume of guests expected tonight, not all the questions may be answered in the hour time frame of the chat. If that is the case, we will be sure to send them to Sophie so that she can answer them, after which we will post them on the blog and our forum.

*In respect to Sophie's time, we will only publish comments that pertain to their current writings, and book.

*We will not post any personal questions or comments.

* Any rude, disrespectful, or spam like comments will not be published.

*Thank you and we look forward to chatting with everyone tonight!


**No part of this chat is allowed to be used with out our permission**

Book Banning - One Educator's Perspective


Several weeks ago, I (Aly) was asked to write a blog post for Banned Book Week for Mundie Moms by Katie. I was planning on writing one thing until I read Dr. Wesley Scroggin’s editorial (http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100918/OPINIONS02/9180307/Scroggins-Filthy-books-demeaning-to-Republic-education) on Sunday, September 19, 2010. Thanks to Paul W. Hankins, an English Teacher in Kentucky, the twitterverse was set ablaze with the hashtag #speakloudly as authors, books lovers, librarians, and bloggers showed their support and solidarity for Laurie Halse Anderson’s book SPEAK. Throughout the day, several female authors shared their own stories of sexual abuse and rape and how books such as SPEAK are powerful, critical and life affirming and should not be removed from classrooms or school librarians.

Books being challenged or banned is not something that was seen only decades ago. It is still happening today in towns and cities all over the United States. Often a parent with little to no real knowledge about a particular book (heck in most cases they haven’t even read the book) will walk into a school or a library and demand that a book be pulled. Typically, there is a process that a library or a school will go through to determine if there is merit to the complaint. In some cases, if the book is part of classroom assigned reading, an alternative will be given to the student whose parent has voiced a concern. In other situations, depending on how vocal and instrumental the parent is, the book will be pulled altogether.

When I was a child, some of the books listed as banned books had a significant POSITIVE impact on my life. Just because I read GO ASK ALICE, didn’t mean that I was going to run out and immediately take drugs. And if I read about teen pregnancy, I didn’t say to myself “Oh, I think I will get pregnant to see what it is like.” Instead, I thought more carefully about my actions and the consequences that might result in certain situations. My parents didn’t censor what I read but they did instill in me a sense of values and I was able to compare what I was reading against those beliefs.

As a book lover and educator, the whole concept of banning a book infuriates me. We are told we must develop critical thinking skills in children, and yet, books that may assist with just that are being challenged and in some cases pulled from our classrooms and our libraries all across America. When I select a book to read aloud in a classroom, to use as part of a curriculum or just to recommend to a student, I often have to stop and ask myself “What will parents think of this book?” I understand why I have to do this, but it doesn’t make it feel or seem better.

However, parents such as Dr. Scroggins really irk me beyond all reason. Why does one parent get to set the standard for all children in a school or a district? And to place religious significance to it makes me fume even more. Scroggins lives in an imaginary world if he believes that by removing all references to sex, various forms of sexual activity, sexual abuse, or pregnancy from the schools that children will be better off. I am not sure what world he lives in but children are aware of profanity, sex, and other so-called offensive topics. If parents are not going to discuss these issues with their children, then children are going to find people who will discuss it with them. I would rather that be with a caring teacher or within the pages of a well-written novel than from peers with limited knowledge.

A few months back, I had the honor and privilege of reading the writing of a group of teen girls. Most were in an alternative education program for teen moms or pregnant teens. Their writing was honest and raw. Page after page, I read of stories about physical abuse or sexual abuse they had suffered through silently until they found their voice with their writing. My tears of sorrow as I read their work turned into tears of joy because despite the horrors they had experienced, they were also finding hope and healing. Small minded people like Scroggins who prefer to live with their heads in the sand would seek to stifle these voices just as they seek to stifle the words of authors such as Laurie Halse Anderson or Ellen Hopkins or many others. However, we can not allow this to happen.

It is for these girls (& boys) and many others who will follow that I will continue to make challenged and banned books available to students in the hopes that these stories will provide a sense of hope and healing. And for those students who are fortunate enough to come from strong supportive homes and who have been spared some of these horrors of life, I hope that they will develop an understanding and respond with compassion when a friend instead is confronted with ones of these issues.

To celebrate our ability to speak loudly and demonstrate to those who would restrict what children and teens can read, I am offering one lucky reader a chance to win a copy of one of the following challenged/banned books mentioned in Scroggins article:

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Burned by Ellen Hopkins (not mentioned in article but frequently challenged)
Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Please see details below as to how to enter the contest:
* One entry per person/per email
* Participants must complete the entry form
* Contest also open to international participants
* Contest ends on Sunday, September 26, 2010 at 11:59 PDT

Twitter Tuesday - Tessa Gratton

Ever since we met Tessa through the Merry Sisters of Fate, we've been waiting for her book, Blood Magic to be released and guess what? Yes, that date is getting closer now!

Look at that gorgeous cover below and then read the synopsis, you'll be looking forward to it as much as we are:
For Nick Pardee and Silla Kennicot, the cemetery is the center of everything.

Nick is a city boy angry at being forced to move back to the nowhere town of Yaleylah, Missouri where he grew up. He can’t help remembering his mom and the blood magic she practiced – memories he’s tried for five years to escape. Silla, though, doesn’t want to forget; her parents’ apparent murder-suicide left her numb and needing answers. When a book of magic spells in her dad’s handwriting appears on her doorstep, she sees her chance to unravel the mystery of their deaths.

Together they plunge into the world of dark magic, but when a hundred-year-old blood witch comes hunting for the bones of Silla’s parents and the spell book, Nick and Silla will have to let go of everything they believe about who they are, the nature of life and death, and the deadly secrets that hide in blood.

Blood Magic will be released on April 26, 2011. Be sure to pre-order it at your favorite bookstore.

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