Dog-eared & Overdue

Category: Intellectual Freedom

  • Reading Goals 2020

    Reading Goals 2020

    The Backlist Reader Challenge: fifteen books I’ve been hoarding on my To Read shelf are getting read this year! 📚 #BacklistReader

  • The Orphan in My Family Tree, Part 8

    The Orphan in My Family Tree, Part 8

    This is Part 8 of The Orphan in My Family Tree. It is the true tale of my ongoing search for the parents of my great great grandpa Fritz, who was orphaned in New York City in the late 1870s and sent, at the age of seven, to live with a foster family in Bow Valley, Nebraska.…

  • November Writing: 31 Days 

    Anyone else want to write with me? For the past six years, I’ve participated in posting 31 Days of November Thankful Thoughts on Facebook. The first year I did it, I was looking for an easy way to focus on the good things happening in my life at a time when I was feeling completely…

  • The Half-Pint Award: What’s in a Name?

    The Half-Pint Award: What’s in a Name?

    I am instead suggesting we have continued conversations as a reading community about building the best collections we can that include characters and stories that have the potential to connect with each of us in a way that makes us all better and that increases our understanding of our society, our history, and our connectedness.

  • Reader Response: War and Peace

    Reader Response: War and Peace

    I loved War and Peace from the moment Pierre bumbled into scheming Anna Pavlovna’s party and proceeded to horrify everyone by fawning over Napoleon.

  • Book Review: Ulysses

    Book Review: Ulysses

    I appreciate Joyce’s technique and experiments with style. I found his echoes of, and connections to, other literary works rather fun. I, in turns, enjoyed Joyce’s cleverness and found that cleverness eye-rollingly overdone.

  • Reader Response: Ulysses

    Reader Response: Ulysses

    I look forward to doing a book review for Ulysses next, but a Reader Response based on my margin notes felt more appropriate given the nature of the work.  Okay so this may not be as bad as I remember I mean it’s just some dudes eating breakfast and borrowing money from each other and then…

  • This Year is Different

    This Year is Different

    We need to stop working from the assumption that people who express different opinions than ours are Super Bad Other Guys.

  • Censorship, Selection & Banned Books

    Censorship, Selection & Banned Books

    Banned Books Week kicked off yesterday. I love Banned Books Week. It is a whole week dedicated to awesome stuff like celebrating our freedom to read and highlighting our right to access diverse material of our own choosing at our school and public libraries. And, equally as awesome, it is a reminder of the guarantee…

  • Reading the Hard Stuff

    Reading the Hard Stuff

    We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture. -ALA’s The Freedom to Read Statement