TheBookJeanie

The BOOKJEANIE invites you to celebrate the freedom to read. Numerous titles have been challenged and removed from public and school libraries this past year including two of my favorite books for children: The Family Book by Todd Parr as well as And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. The Family Book celebrates families of all kinds, an inclusive  book that resonates with all children. And Tango Makes Three is the true story of two male chinstrap penguins at the NY Central Park Zoo who, unable to find mates, become partners and care for an egg from another penguin.   Many other books over the years have been targets of censorship including Catcher in the Rye , The Grapes of Wrath , James and the Giant Peach, Slaughterhouse Five, and In the Night Kitchen. This week I am reading a truly thought-provoking novel for middle grade students that won the Newbery Medal for Children's Literature but has been challenged many times over the years: The Giv...

THEBOOKJEANIE bids farewell to   SEAMUS HEANEY ,   1939-2013 Postscript by Seamus Heaney And some time make the time to drive out west Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, In September or October, when the wind And the light are working off each other So that the ocean on one side is wild With foam and glitter, and inland among stones The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit By the earthed lightening of flock of swans, Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white, Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads Tucked or cresting or busy underwater. Useless to think you'll park or capture it More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there, A hurry through which known and strange things pass As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways And catch the heart off guard and blow it open Seamus Heaney, poet and  recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature,  passed away in Dublin on August 30th....