Book #5 – The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Alright, so I missed the cut off by a couple days for Banned Book Week. You can blame my wedding anniversary. Now, onto the last Banned Book for a bit.

While the book was first published in 2003, the latest controversy was in 2015, at Reynolds High School, when a parent objected to the book for a couple of reasons. First, the parent didn’t like the language, adult themes, or how the book objectified women. (More on that later, because let’s just say “This book did not back down from being brutal.”) Second, and possibly stranger, the parent objected that the book was a replacement for All Quiet on the Western Front. Here’s where the first objection doesn’t make much sense, because from what I remember of All Quiet, it’s got plenty of adult themes because well, war. In any case, the school ruled to return to All Quiet and only read excerpts from Kite Runner.

The book, the first by Khaled Hosseini, tells the saga of Amir as he grows up in the wealthy part of Afghanistan, only to flee from the Russians. He then returns, nearly 2 decades later to right a wrong from his childhood. The tale mingles the history of the wars in Afghanistan, a tad of tradition and spirituality, and the story of one man discovering that there was more to his story than he ever thought possible.

Book #51 – Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

The summer reading list of Chesterfield Country, Virginia included 3 books that caused quite a stir with parents in 2016. One such book was Eleanor & Park, which was banned for being sexually explicit and containing “vile, vile, nasty language”. In fact, the state Senator even called for the librarians who had suggested the book to be fired. A committee was put together within the school board, PTA parents, and teachers read through the 3 books in full, and decided to keep the books on the list.

Eleanor & Park was originally published in 2013 and recounts the story of two teenagers slowly falling in love. The book also handles things like race, body image, bullying, domestic abuse, and whether Batman is a boring superhero. The book is set in the mid 1980s, in Omaha Nebraska and could honestly rival Romeo and Juliet for a teachable love story.

Book #565 – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

Every year, the Toronto Public Library releases a report on the books that received censorship requests. In 2015, a patron requested that Dave Egger’s book be removed for “being poorly written and profane”. The book itself is a stream of consciousness that in many parts contains more profanity than the movie Wolf of Wall Street (which supposedly contains the most profanity per minute of any one film). The request is therefore valid, as the grammar is severely lacking compared to “normal” prose, and the profanity is pretty much constant. Toronto kept the book on its shelves, causing the patron to probably make the shaming fingers at it whenever they passed it on the memoir shelves.

The book follows Dave as he deals with the loss of both parents, the guardianship of his much younger brother, Toph, and has a start up magazine in San Francisco in the early 90s. The book reads like the verbatim transcription of someone walking around with a tape recorder plugged into the thought center of their brain. Actually, in several spots in the book, the tape recorder is mentioned, and Dave just lacks a filter between that thought center and his mouth.

Book #15 – Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Originally published in two parts “Little Women” and “Good Wives”, this 1868 novel has been a combined book since 1880. It has been a constant favorite of young women ever since, even if the rhetoric inside no longer applies to the faster pace of the modern woman. Little Women follows the girls as they grow into adulthood, with small, loosely connected stories. Good Wives tells about the girls’ adventures in love and is a tad more consistent with the plot line.

It did take me a bit longer than I would have liked to complete the book, and not because my particular copy was 777 pages long. (I read Deathly Hallows in less than 24 hours while working as a Playground assistant.) I think it’s because you can tell that the author didn’t like what she was writing. Louisa Alcott actually hated the book, didn’t want to marry Jo to anyone, and was greatly confused by how famous the book became.

Book #76 – Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Originally published in 1908, this book was so well received that it went on to become a much longer series which depicted the lives of Anne and her children. It’s set on Prince Edward Island, an island off the cost of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and the smallest of Canada’s provinces by area. Anne is brought to live in a small farming village with a single school house and just enough people that gossip spreads quickly. I was also able to pin down the years in which the novel took place using a historical fashion site; Anne grew up in the mid-1890s based on her love of puffed sleeves.

At first, I struggled a bit with this particular turn-of-the-century novel. There were a couple of reasons, but the main one was Anne herself. A common critique, as I grew to find when talking with others about the book, was that Anne seriously needed Adderall, or some other ADHD medication. She wasn’t just talkative or precocious or daring; she was textbook attention-deficit-hyperactive-disorder, and it was exhausting. I have ADD and I just wanted to shove a sock in Anne’s mouth for half the book. But then, I met a character that has apparently captured the hearts of generations…

Book #202 – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Originally published in 1943, the book is a blend of autobiography and fiction. My copy had a mini biography on the author, and apparently Betty Smith also grew up in Brooklyn to German-immigrant parents, had two younger siblings, and never had a high school diploma until several years after her death (and not even in the state she was born). The book details life in the tenement houses in Brooklyn, where many of the people barely speak English, and where an elementary school diploma is considered enough to get by.

Now, a 100 years later, the tale of Francie Nolan seems both completely foreign ($20 a week is good pay) and yet all too familiar. Like many of the other books I’ve read for the Great American Read, it’s a tale of the dire straits of the less fortunate.

Book #232 – Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

Welcome to another book from my list of “But everyone read this in elementary school!” that I somehow missed. I blame my school for choosing Old Yeller instead. It’s especially poignant that I missed this book in particular now that I’ve moved away from the corn fields of southern Ohio into the foothills of the Appalachian mountains where raccoon-hunting is still something done in the backwoods. Though, mostly it’s deer and duck hunting with bass fishing on the off season, but every now and then, you hear a man boast about his coon-hounds.

My own dog is partially of hunting stock. He’s a mutt, but there’s no mistaking the straight line of a pointer-hound when he spot something. Granted all my dog hunts is the occasional fly, the cats, or the ferret. (Or more frequently, the ferret hunts my dog.) Still, I don’t think I could have kept up with the energy of Old Dan and Little Ann.

Book #9 – The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The book was first published in 2009, but is set in the early 1960s. It’s written from the perspectives of 3 women dealing with the changes that the Civil Rights movement began to stir up. Two of the women are housemaids, working for middle to upper class white ladies who would rather play cards than learn how to cook a roast. The third is a young white woman fresh from college and starting to see the cracks in her friends’ perfect lives. It’s definitely a stirring novel with enough historical references to make it almost seem like a memoir.

I live… South adjacent, and I always have. Cincinnati and the Ohio River were once the one of the main stops on the Underground Railroad. (And now we have a museum). Now that I live a little East of Cincinnati, on the opposite side of the river, I’ve come to know that the South is very protective of their history, the bad and the good. Which probably explains the mixed reviews from readers.

Book #25 – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

I’m pretty sure this book has been on my want to read list since high school. Originally published in 2003, it’s met with rave reviews from the critics, and a mixed bag of reviews from readers. The story follows Christopher, a teenager with learning disabilities (which are described much like autism, though that is never confirmed) who finds his neighbors dog dead in their yard, and thus starts a whirlwind of change for Christopher. The book is set in a a small town (Swindon), north of London, and in London itself as Christopher tries to make sense of the world around him.

I’ll set this premise. My godson has autism, I have a good friend with Asperger syndrome, and I have ADD, so a lot of what Christopher says and does is very familiar to me. However, even if you haven’t spent time with someone on the autistic spectrum, Christopher does attempt to explain his actions in a way that makes sense. The story does jump, however, between the actual story and small tidbits of info about Christopher or the world. I sort of felt like I was reading Moby Dick again, because that book had a habit of veering off from the story at times, too.

Book #18 – The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

So, my copy of this book has a lovely Q&A that let me know that while the book is not a memoir, it was inspired by the story of Nicholas’ wife’s grandparents. The Notebook was originally written in 1996, just 2 months before my sister was born. I don’t know it my mother read this one during the following times (most of my current Sparks collection came from her bookshelves, though). And in 2004, it was made into a movie that made Ryan Gosling the heart throb of most of the girls in my Junior High.

If you watched the movie, a word of warning. All the time spent building the romance between Allie and Noah in the movie? (If you’re a bird, I’m a bird.)? That’s kind of a…footnote in the book. The book is almost entirely the last part of the movie where Allie returns to New Burn after hearing that Noah has rebuilt the house from their summer together.