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Banned Books Awareness: Thomas Paine

August 28, 2011 R. Wolf Baldassarro 2

Thomas Paine was many things: author, radical, inventor, intellectual, and revolutionary; he is considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Paine was also no stranger to censorship, though- in his own time or the present day. He has been described as “a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist […]

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Banned Books Awareness: Sherlock Holmes

August 21, 2011 R. Wolf Baldassarro 1

On Thursday, August 11, 2011, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once again made headlines, but it wasn’t for literary accomplishment or news of a long-lost Sherlock Holmes crime buster. He, instead, found himself on newswires around the world for having one of his books banned. That night a school board in […]

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Banned Books Awareness: Shel Silverstein

August 15, 2011 R. Wolf Baldassarro 30

For more than 40 years the books of Sheldon Allan “Shel” Silverstein have entertained and delighted readers as they are shared by fans and passed down to younger generations. The Giving Tree is one of the most affectionate, oft-quoted, and beloved children’s stories of all time; A Light in the […]

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Banned Books Awareness: Slaughterhouse-Five

August 7, 2011 R. Wolf Baldassarro 10

What Mark Twain was to the 19th century, Kurt Vonnegut was to the 20th. Both are among the finest examples of the American Satirists. He was, and is, a beloved fixture of American literature. When Vonnegut died in 2007, members of the Alplaus Volunteer Fire Department in New York lowered […]

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Banned Books Awareness: Alice in Wonderland

August 1, 2011 R. Wolf Baldassarro 36

The 1865 work by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll was a pseudonym) about a girl’s trip into a fantasy world has been of tremendous influence on literature and music, and a mainstay of animated and feature adaptations for generations. It is widely considered to be one of the best examples of […]