Kelly's comments (member since Apr 13, 2009)

Kelly's comments from the Banned Books group.

Great idea, Signteach. Good for you, Geri! I'm glad you'll be joining us later.

If I wrote a complicated adult book and someone wanted to dumb it down by abridging it for teaching to kids, I'd be fine with it as long as it was made clear to the kids that it was an abridged version. (Like that would ever happen. :) ) I think that Shakespeare for kids is wonderful because the language is so challenging that youngsters might miss out entirely on his work when the poetry of the words is only part of the beauty. If they learn to love the stories they might be more willing to pick them up the full versions later when they are ready.

Welcome everyone. I'm so glad you've joined us. Ruby, your translation is on my to-read list and I requested it from our library yesterday!

Hi, all,

Participation in the book club has dwindled from little to just about none. I have been too sick to post new polls but no one read the previous books it appears. (I am now well enough to run it again.) I want to know if people still want to do the book club. If not, no big deal. I don't want to force anyone. Please vote here:

http://www.goodreads.com/poll/invite/260...

(and make a comment if you have one) for your reason.

Thanks so much,

Kelly

Hi, Laura,

Those are great suggestions. Thanks for all your research! Do you want me to add all of them to the list? Some books that are banned may not be that interesting to read. For example, I have no desire to read the Internet Girls or Gossip Girls series. I don't think they have a whole lot of redeeming value.

It's also a daunting task to go through each one and see if it's a children's book or adult book. You've listed a lot here! So this month I'm going to just use our existing list of books specifically recommended for the book club and fill up any gaps with ones from our regular bookshelves that are already sorted by age. (With a random number generator.) But please, do tell me which ones you want me to add to the list we vote on. If you want them all, I can do it. Really I can. :)

I'm not sure how two copies of Cuckoo's nest got up there. I removed one. Thanks for pointing that out!

This topic is for general discussions about The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

This topic is for general discussions about The Satanic Verses.

This topic is for in-depth discussion about The Satanic Verses.

This topic is for in-depth discussion about The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

The new polls are up. I've put an explanation of how I select the books in the discussion "General Book Club Business" so take a look. We really need more suggestions for adult books so recommend away!

Hi, all,

The new polls are up. Vote now!

I wanted to give you all a quick note on how I choose the books. I use the books people have requested that are on the "suggested for book group" list on our bookshelf. If there are fewer than 10 books in the category (e.g., adult) I just use them all. If there are more than ten, I use a random number generator to determine which books we'll read. Once a book by an author has been selected for that month's poll I remove all of that author's books from the remaining choices. That way we don't end up with 5 books by one author on the list. The In continue in that vein until 10 have been selected. All books that were not selected are put back in the running for next months' poll.

Real world example: This month we have 13 children/young adult book choices. Two are by Chris Cutcher and two by Robert Cormier. I used a random number generator to select the books. When Cutcher's The Sledding Hill came up, I removed Whale Talk from the list and continued. When Cormier's The Chocolate War was selected, I removed Fade from the list and continued. Both Fade and Whale Talk will again be eligible for selection next month.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Thanks, Laura, that is very helpful.

If you check our bookshelves, you'll see we actually have divided it up. There is a general shelf that anyone can add books to. That's the one that comes up when you first click on "bookshelf." There is no checking to see that they have actually been banned or challenged.

On the left is a list of our smaller shelves. There's a shelf called "suggested for book group" which is the list I pull from for our monthly book. I keep it separate because someone may suggest a book in the main list that they think others should read but they've already read it and no one else has any interest in.

Feel free to suggest any book from the large list to be added to the small list. I look it up and if I can find any kind of reference to it being formally challenged or banned, I add it to the list.

There is also a tiny list called "read in book club" which is a list of the books we've already read and discussed here. (We've only had the book group component for a very short time.)

I'm also creating new shelves for adult and children's so that folks know where it would show up in our polls. Feel free to suggest any book be moved from one to the other.

Does that meet your needs? If not, let me know how I can reorganize to suit.

Thanks!

I find it interesting that people say a book promotes an activity just because someone in the book does the activity. One of the major ways to discuss ethical issues in a book is for someone to do the unethical and then watch the fallout.

That's fabulous, though of course my initial reaction is, "why would parents have a problem with kids doing a play about cancer?" But that's probably part of the humor.

That's funny! The whole thing is so bizarre. When I think of riots and violent protests that part of the world rarely comes to mind... I guess there is craziness everywhere. I am against banning and censorship but I'm even more against murder. I don't understand that kind of violence at all.

That's hilarious!

I've read other Alexie books and all of them have elements that are autobiographical. I don't know much about this one, though.

Hi, Connie,

Thanks for the post! I moved this discussion to the Classics section because the Book Club discussion is for the books we read together. Thanks!

Kelly

Hi, Manuela,

Great review! I moved this discussion to the general fiction section because the Book Club discussion is for the books we read together. Thanks!

Kelly

Hi, Juan,

Great review! I moved this discussion to the classics section because the Book club discussion is for the books we read together. Thanks!

Kelly