Read Any Good Books Lately?

Well, I'm back. Those of you optimistically hoping for an announcement of my untimely demise or incarceration can pour two fingers and celebrate, one way or another. Actually, I've been in a bit of a writing slump and just didn't care to get off my lazy ass and write something.

Back in the bad old days (1958 or so) there was a children's book entitled The Story of Little Black Sambo, written and illustrated by Scottish author Helen Bannerman and published by Grant Richards in October 1899. Over the years the NAACP and all kinds of other groups either objected to it as being racist, or supported it as being a nice children's story. I owned a copy, an old one, and didn't find it racist at all. As it turned out, the story is about a child from India, not Africa, who outwits a bunch of tigers who want to eat him, but fail to do so due to Sambo's bravery and intelligence. Our local library banned it, which my parents thought was wrong. It was then that I learned about banned books and the importance of being able to read.

I ran across this someplace or other, and the book burners are still at it.

 

Short Banned Books List

I've read most of these books, but somehow never got around to reading Go Ask Alice by Anonymous, published about 1974. I picked up a copy and am about two-thirds of the way through. I'll post a review once I've finished, but so far I've found it mildly interesting.

Years ago I read Lord of the Flies by William Golding, and it made quite an impression on me. I was about the same age as the main characters in the story, and was in junior high  (middle school to some) when I read it. I looked my classmates over carefully, wondering how they would do if they were marooned on a desert island. I concluded that society would develop much like the it did in the novel, and would continue to become more violent until someone inevitably murdered someone else. The killing would eventually cease, and the rest would starve to death unless rescued. 

Ah, well. Such is life.