100 Posts!

Celebration! I'm at 100 posts! I can't believe it! It seems like I just started this whole thing a month ago. This whole blogging thing is nuts! Anyhoo, since it's my 100th post, AND it just so happens to be Banned Book Week (September 25th-October 2nd), I decided to not only blog about the banned books from the banned book list, but to read another one this week! Thanks Karma Sue (roommate and friend) for the suggestion!

So to start us off, for all of those inquiring minds out there, here's a list of books that have been banned at one time or another in the United States (the ones that I've read I've bolded):

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

That's a LOT of books! I would definitely have to say that Catcher in the Rye by Salinger as well as To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee would have to be my favorites on this list. I guess that makes me a sinner because I like banned books? Oh well! Anyway, I think that I want to read The Chocolate War by Cormier this week; I have a soft spot for Cormier, ever since I participated in a Cormier unit in my Adolescent Lit. class at BYU. His stuff is twisted, but oh so good! I'll let you know how it reads later this week!

Provo Children's Library Book Festival

As I was going through my list of posts that have been sitting on the back-burner as I awaited finishing school, graduating, moving, etc., I realized that I completely forgot to create a post about the Provo Children's Library Book Festival from this past May. Wow. Talk about a brain lapse. And this year it was PHENOMENAL! One of the main reasons for it's elevated status is because I got to meet Jennifer Holm, author of the Boston Jane series (one of my favorites), as well as the author of the ever popular Baby Mouse comics. Though she was the keynote author, I was surprised at how little attended her line was for signings, but I got over the shock once I started talking to her and realized that I could have a 10 minute conversation with her, which is what I did. Definitely the highlight of my day, and year.

After chatting with the hilarity that is Holm, I quickly jumped into the Shannon Hale author signing line with a friend because she had some new books of Hale's that she wanted to get signed for herself and her family. Once we got to the table and started talking with her, we realized that she was pregnant with twins, which promptly became the subject of our conversation. What was she going to name them? Did they know the sex of the babies? Had they considered naming them after famous Superhero duos? Our little chat was probably the best of the day, which was greater intensified because of our super long wait, but most definitely worth it.

Although I didn't spend as much time as I have in the past at the book festival because I've already had the pleasure of meeting several of the authors, I was glad that I made the festival a "must" on my summer "to-do" list. I just can't wait for what next year has to bring!