“Stuff Some Adults Don’t Want You to Read” at Langley

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It wasn’t just the principal. The Region 1 superintendent (Doug Tyson) issued a separate apology as well. It’s just sad they feel the need to apologize for looking for creative ways to encourage kids to read.

There are many, many other ways to better encourage folks to read than this. C'mon - be better.

Agreed. There are healthy ways to encourage kids to read without putting them against their parents.

+2
And MUCH better written books to encourage kids to read.

Much better written than what? Which books in the Langley display do you believe were poorly written?

Crickets.

Dumb a$$ book banners can't be bothered to actually READ any books. Only ban them.

Beloved had only slightly better writing than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, but did have more titillation.

LOL, it won a Pulitzer and was a National Book Award finalist, but I’m sure you know better.

The narrative style in Beloved is straight out of 80's cheesefest "Highlander" jumping around in time and space so much and blending multiple viewpoints that the reader might as well be riding in the TARDIS.

Beloved depicts rape and violence towards women, described in such detail, so often, as to cause a reader to wonder if Toni was really condemning it, or if this "feminist" had some sort of bizarre masochistic fetish? Feminist fiction has often left me wondering that. Honestly, Toni Morrison's novels seem more like an attempt to shock, stupefy, and play mind games with her readers than to actually tell stories.

Sure. And slavery was actually a good things for slaves. They were never raped or beaten or brutalized.

What does that have to do with the quality of Toni Morrison's writing?

Toni attempts to manipulate the reader in an obvious manner with zero subtly whatsoever. She may as well write on the cover " I am trying to make you feel dumber than I am! " Unfortunately for Toni, if a reader knows you're trying to manipulate them, no amount of style, imagery, or endorsements from critics is going to work. There is a saying-"A tactic known is a tactic blown".

Try reading her other works and you can see the same tricks at play right away.

I struggle to make sense of Beloved, but it's worth the exercise. And I thing I suspect is that there's no group of parents less qualified to weigh in on the merits of Toni Morrison's style than Langley parents. They may know a few things about stock options and carried interest, but they aren't exactly a literary crowd.

I'm of the opinion that if you want a better story to explore a story from multiple viewpoints at a high school level, you're better off reading Rashomon.

The truth is that the stream of racial consciousness interlude in Beloved is a display piece, a verbal stunt that is connected to the rest of the novel by the thinnest of fictions. As well as by Morrison's ambition to leave a monument to the suffering caused by black slavery.

Wasn’t Rashomon a movie?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn’t just the principal. The Region 1 superintendent (Doug Tyson) issued a separate apology as well. It’s just sad they feel the need to apologize for looking for creative ways to encourage kids to read.

There are many, many other ways to better encourage folks to read than this. C'mon - be better.

Agreed. There are healthy ways to encourage kids to read without putting them against their parents.

+2
And MUCH better written books to encourage kids to read.

Much better written than what? Which books in the Langley display do you believe were poorly written?

Crickets.

Dumb a$$ book banners can't be bothered to actually READ any books. Only ban them.

Beloved had only slightly better writing than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, but did have more titillation.

LOL, it won a Pulitzer and was a National Book Award finalist, but I’m sure you know better.

The narrative style in Beloved is straight out of 80's cheesefest "Highlander" jumping around in time and space so much and blending multiple viewpoints that the reader might as well be riding in the TARDIS.

Beloved depicts rape and violence towards women, described in such detail, so often, as to cause a reader to wonder if Toni was really condemning it, or if this "feminist" had some sort of bizarre masochistic fetish? Feminist fiction has often left me wondering that. Honestly, Toni Morrison's novels seem more like an attempt to shock, stupefy, and play mind games with her readers than to actually tell stories.

Sure. And slavery was actually a good things for slaves. They were never raped or beaten or brutalized.

What does that have to do with the quality of Toni Morrison's writing?

Toni attempts to manipulate the reader in an obvious manner with zero subtly whatsoever. She may as well write on the cover " I am trying to make you feel dumber than I am! " Unfortunately for Toni, if a reader knows you're trying to manipulate them, no amount of style, imagery, or endorsements from critics is going to work. There is a saying-"A tactic known is a tactic blown".

Try reading her other works and you can see the same tricks at play right away.

I struggle to make sense of Beloved, but it's worth the exercise. And I thing I suspect is that there's no group of parents less qualified to weigh in on the merits of Toni Morrison's style than Langley parents. They may know a few things about stock options and carried interest, but they aren't exactly a literary crowd.

I'm of the opinion that if you want a better story to explore a story from multiple viewpoints at a high school level, you're better off reading Rashomon.

The truth is that the stream of racial consciousness interlude in Beloved is a display piece, a verbal stunt that is connected to the rest of the novel by the thinnest of fictions. As well as by Morrison's ambition to leave a monument to the suffering caused by black slavery.

Wasn’t Rashomon a movie?

No, it was originally a short story, but uses the same narrative trick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn’t just the principal. The Region 1 superintendent (Doug Tyson) issued a separate apology as well. It’s just sad they feel the need to apologize for looking for creative ways to encourage kids to read.

There are many, many other ways to better encourage folks to read than this. C'mon - be better.

Agreed. There are healthy ways to encourage kids to read without putting them against their parents.

+2
And MUCH better written books to encourage kids to read.

Much better written than what? Which books in the Langley display do you believe were poorly written?

Crickets.

Dumb a$$ book banners can't be bothered to actually READ any books. Only ban them.

Beloved had only slightly better writing than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, but did have more titillation.

LOL, it won a Pulitzer and was a National Book Award finalist, but I’m sure you know better.

The narrative style in Beloved is straight out of 80's cheesefest "Highlander" jumping around in time and space so much and blending multiple viewpoints that the reader might as well be riding in the TARDIS.

Beloved depicts rape and violence towards women, described in such detail, so often, as to cause a reader to wonder if Toni was really condemning it, or if this "feminist" had some sort of bizarre masochistic fetish? Feminist fiction has often left me wondering that. Honestly, Toni Morrison's novels seem more like an attempt to shock, stupefy, and play mind games with her readers than to actually tell stories.

Sure. And slavery was actually a good things for slaves. They were never raped or beaten or brutalized.

What does that have to do with the quality of Toni Morrison's writing?

Toni attempts to manipulate the reader in an obvious manner with zero subtly whatsoever. She may as well write on the cover " I am trying to make you feel dumber than I am! " Unfortunately for Toni, if a reader knows you're trying to manipulate them, no amount of style, imagery, or endorsements from critics is going to work. There is a saying-"A tactic known is a tactic blown".

Try reading her other works and you can see the same tricks at play right away.

I struggle to make sense of Beloved, but it's worth the exercise. And I thing I suspect is that there's no group of parents less qualified to weigh in on the merits of Toni Morrison's style than Langley parents. They may know a few things about stock options and carried interest, but they aren't exactly a literary crowd.

I'm of the opinion that if you want a better story to explore a story from multiple viewpoints at a high school level, you're better off reading Rashomon.

The truth is that the stream of racial consciousness interlude in Beloved is a display piece, a verbal stunt that is connected to the rest of the novel by the thinnest of fictions. As well as by Morrison's ambition to leave a monument to the suffering caused by black slavery.

Wasn’t Rashomon a movie?

No, it was originally a short story, but uses the same narrative trick.

Where can you find it in English? Google is failing me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn’t just the principal. The Region 1 superintendent (Doug Tyson) issued a separate apology as well. It’s just sad they feel the need to apologize for looking for creative ways to encourage kids to read.

There are many, many other ways to better encourage folks to read than this. C'mon - be better.

Agreed. There are healthy ways to encourage kids to read without putting them against their parents.

+2
And MUCH better written books to encourage kids to read.

Much better written than what? Which books in the Langley display do you believe were poorly written?

Crickets.

Dumb a$$ book banners can't be bothered to actually READ any books. Only ban them.

Beloved had only slightly better writing than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, but did have more titillation.

LOL, it won a Pulitzer and was a National Book Award finalist, but I’m sure you know better.

The narrative style in Beloved is straight out of 80's cheesefest "Highlander" jumping around in time and space so much and blending multiple viewpoints that the reader might as well be riding in the TARDIS.

Beloved depicts rape and violence towards women, described in such detail, so often, as to cause a reader to wonder if Toni was really condemning it, or if this "feminist" had some sort of bizarre masochistic fetish? Feminist fiction has often left me wondering that. Honestly, Toni Morrison's novels seem more like an attempt to shock, stupefy, and play mind games with her readers than to actually tell stories.

Sure. And slavery was actually a good things for slaves. They were never raped or beaten or brutalized.

What does that have to do with the quality of Toni Morrison's writing?

Toni attempts to manipulate the reader in an obvious manner with zero subtly whatsoever. She may as well write on the cover " I am trying to make you feel dumber than I am! " Unfortunately for Toni, if a reader knows you're trying to manipulate them, no amount of style, imagery, or endorsements from critics is going to work. There is a saying-"A tactic known is a tactic blown".

Try reading her other works and you can see the same tricks at play right away.

It sounds like it makes you very uncomfortable to contemplate the realities of slavery.

Not at all. Her odd spacing and lack of punctuation, the fragmented phrases, are little more than an attempt to defamiliarize what are, to be honest, scenes and images that have been familiar since the first photographs of Hitler’s death camps were published in the United States. The dead, heaped in a pile, are nothing new. Only her typography is new.

She is definitely one of the least impressive of the American Nobel laureates. Setting her side by side with Lewis or O'Neill or Faulkner or Steinbeck or Hemingway demonstrates that very quickly. Beyond her novels, I read also two books of her essays (for a total of nine books) and have yet to be impressed by much of anything. Comparing her with some of her fellow black American authors also is instructive. Hurston, Walker, and Baldwin definitely outshine her. In my opinion, the 12 pages of Baldwin's "My Dungeon Shook" are better than anything in the thousands of pages of Morrison. And Baldwin does it repeatedly. (He is the one who should be a Nobel laureate.)

Frankly, I don't think people will be reading much from her in a generation. They will, however, still be reading Baldwin, Faulkner, Hurston, Hemingway, Walker, and Steinbeck.

This is very cute rhetoric and I’m sure you’re very impressed with yourself, but it is not an argument for banning the book.

[Anonymous]

I have no idea what the PP ranting about Morrison has to do with anything. You don’t like her works. Big whooping deal. Others like it. This is how this whole business works; some authors and some works appeal more than others. And just because some rando on the internet finds an author’s work unremarkable doesn’t mean that everyone else feels the same way. Or that a book has literary merit only if everyone agrees that it does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn’t just the principal. The Region 1 superintendent (Doug Tyson) issued a separate apology as well. It’s just sad they feel the need to apologize for looking for creative ways to encourage kids to read.

There are many, many other ways to better encourage folks to read than this. C'mon - be better.

Agreed. There are healthy ways to encourage kids to read without putting them against their parents.

+2
And MUCH better written books to encourage kids to read.

Much better written than what? Which books in the Langley display do you believe were poorly written?

Crickets.

Dumb a$$ book banners can't be bothered to actually READ any books. Only ban them.

Beloved had only slightly better writing than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, but did have more titillation.

LOL, it won a Pulitzer and was a National Book Award finalist, but I’m sure you know better.

The narrative style in Beloved is straight out of 80's cheesefest "Highlander" jumping around in time and space so much and blending multiple viewpoints that the reader might as well be riding in the TARDIS.

Beloved depicts rape and violence towards women, described in such detail, so often, as to cause a reader to wonder if Toni was really condemning it, or if this "feminist" had some sort of bizarre masochistic fetish? Feminist fiction has often left me wondering that. Honestly, Toni Morrison's novels seem more like an attempt to shock, stupefy, and play mind games with her readers than to actually tell stories.

Sure. And slavery was actually a good things for slaves. They were never raped or beaten or brutalized.

What does that have to do with the quality of Toni Morrison's writing?

Toni attempts to manipulate the reader in an obvious manner with zero subtly whatsoever. She may as well write on the cover " I am trying to make you feel dumber than I am! " Unfortunately for Toni, if a reader knows you're trying to manipulate them, no amount of style, imagery, or endorsements from critics is going to work. There is a saying-"A tactic known is a tactic blown".

Try reading her other works and you can see the same tricks at play right away.

I struggle to make sense of Beloved, but it's worth the exercise. And I thing I suspect is that there's no group of parents less qualified to weigh in on the merits of Toni Morrison's style than Langley parents. They may know a few things about stock options and carried interest, but they aren't exactly a literary crowd.

I'm of the opinion that if you want a better story to explore a story from multiple viewpoints at a high school level, you're better off reading Rashomon.

The truth is that the stream of racial consciousness interlude in Beloved is a display piece, a verbal stunt that is connected to the rest of the novel by the thinnest of fictions. As well as by Morrison's ambition to leave a monument to the suffering caused by black slavery.

Wasn’t Rashomon a movie?

No, it was originally a short story, but uses the same narrative trick.

Where can you find it in English? Google is failing me.

You can find it in a collection of ghost stories called Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn. It's been years since I read it, but it tells the same story from 4 different perspectives.

[Anonymous]

Totally agree. It is outrageous that the principal cowered in the face of this manufactured controversy and threw the librarian under the bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am disappointed in the principal for not backing the librarians on that.

Me too. The email made it sound like it was something racist or horribly offensive. The sign was accurate. Truth hurts, conservatives?

Totally agree. I honestly hope the reasonable parents will speak up. We need the sane majority to get louder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Totally agree. It is outrageous that the principal cowered in the face of this manufactured controversy and threw the librarian under the bus.

The principal took ownership. She did not throw anyone under the bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn’t just the principal. The Region 1 superintendent (Doug Tyson) issued a separate apology as well. It’s just sad they feel the need to apologize for looking for creative ways to encourage kids to read.

There are many, many other ways to better encourage folks to read than this. C'mon - be better.

Agreed. There are healthy ways to encourage kids to read without putting them against their parents.

+2
And MUCH better written books to encourage kids to read.

Much better written than what? Which books in the Langley display do you believe were poorly written?

Crickets.

Dumb a$$ book banners can't be bothered to actually READ any books. Only ban them.

Beloved had only slightly better writing than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, but did have more titillation.

LOL, it won a Pulitzer and was a National Book Award finalist, but I’m sure you know better.

The narrative style in Beloved is straight out of 80's cheesefest "Highlander" jumping around in time and space so much and blending multiple viewpoints that the reader might as well be riding in the TARDIS.

Beloved depicts rape and violence towards women, described in such detail, so often, as to cause a reader to wonder if Toni was really condemning it, or if this "feminist" had some sort of bizarre masochistic fetish? Feminist fiction has often left me wondering that. Honestly, Toni Morrison's novels seem more like an attempt to shock, stupefy, and play mind games with her readers than to actually tell stories.

Sure. And slavery was actually a good things for slaves. They were never raped or beaten or brutalized.

What does that have to do with the quality of Toni Morrison's writing?

Toni attempts to manipulate the reader in an obvious manner with zero subtly whatsoever. She may as well write on the cover " I am trying to make you feel dumber than I am! " Unfortunately for Toni, if a reader knows you're trying to manipulate them, no amount of style, imagery, or endorsements from critics is going to work. There is a saying-"A tactic known is a tactic blown".

Try reading her other works and you can see the same tricks at play right away.

It sounds like it makes you very uncomfortable to contemplate the realities of slavery.

Not at all. Her odd spacing and lack of punctuation, the fragmented phrases, are little more than an attempt to defamiliarize what are, to be honest, scenes and images that have been familiar since the first photographs of Hitler’s death camps were published in the United States. The dead, heaped in a pile, are nothing new. Only her typography is new.

She is definitely one of the least impressive of the American Nobel laureates. Setting her side by side with Lewis or O'Neill or Faulkner or Steinbeck or Hemingway demonstrates that very quickly. Beyond her novels, I read also two books of her essays (for a total of nine books) and have yet to be impressed by much of anything. Comparing her with some of her fellow black American authors also is instructive. Hurston, Walker, and Baldwin definitely outshine her. In my opinion, the 12 pages of Baldwin's "My Dungeon Shook" are better than anything in the thousands of pages of Morrison. And Baldwin does it repeatedly. (He is the one who should be a Nobel laureate.)

Frankly, I don't think people will be reading much from her in a generation. They will, however, still be reading Baldwin, Faulkner, Hurston, Hemingway, Walker, and Steinbeck.

This is very cute rhetoric and I’m sure you’re very impressed with yourself, but it is not an argument for banning the book.

Shifting goal posts.

The claim was "Which books in the Langley display do you believe were poorly written?" which I bolded above and responded to. Not "why should the books be banned." Though I did address such potential concerns with "Beloved depicts rape and violence towards women, described in such detail, so often, as to cause a reader to wonder if Toni was really condemning it, or if this "feminist" had some sort of bizarre masochistic fetish."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Totally agree. It is outrageous that the principal cowered in the face of this manufactured controversy and threw the librarian under the bus.

The principal took ownership. She did not throw anyone under the bus.

DP. The principal didn’t put up the sign. Calling it poor judgment was absolutely throwing the librarian under the bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn’t just the principal. The Region 1 superintendent (Doug Tyson) issued a separate apology as well. It’s just sad they feel the need to apologize for looking for creative ways to encourage kids to read.

There are many, many other ways to better encourage folks to read than this. C'mon - be better.

Telling kids that some adults want a thing to be off limits to them is actually a really effective way to pique their interest.

Exactly. What in early happened to these GenX people who are lunatics now? We all grew up with the same media and the same books. Who doesn’t understand that it is reasonable and harmless to tap into the energy of teen rebellion? It’s normal and developmentally appropriate. The people who have an objection to this are straight up bonkers.

With all the stress educators have been under this year, I’m so angry that hardworking, dedicated school librarians have to deal with not only this kind of baseless attack, but with their supervisors publicly reprimanding them.

I’m going to email the librarians tomorrow to say I support them and ask what book they’d like me to donate to their library.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is yet another way that schools are making it an us (parents) versus them (adults in schools) mentality. Perpetuating the notion our kids, while at school, are independent and unaccountable to their parents is troubling. Or, at the worst indefensible, when "teaching" that their parents are morally wrong or "bad" because parents beliefs are counter to what is being normalized at school. I do not want to dictate what schools teach my kids, I just want schools to reiterate to our children that parents have the biggest stake in their lives. And, no matter what, their parents and what their parents provide, encourage, and instill in kids are the biggest indicators of success - not replaceable by anything a school can, nor should, do for children. Parenting is hard enough these days without having to fight and counter what adults, who are not in any way (legally, financially, emotionally) responsible for our children, are "teaching."

https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/educations-enduring-love-affair-luxury-beliefs

Parents harm their children in so many ways - many parents don't always have their children's best interests at home, only their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is yet another way that schools are making it an us (parents) versus them (adults in schools) mentality. Perpetuating the notion our kids, while at school, are independent and unaccountable to their parents is troubling. Or, at the worst indefensible, when "teaching" that their parents are morally wrong or "bad" because parents beliefs are counter to what is being normalized at school. I do not want to dictate what schools teach my kids, I just want schools to reiterate to our children that parents have the biggest stake in their lives. And, no matter what, their parents and what their parents provide, encourage, and instill in kids are the biggest indicators of success - not replaceable by anything a school can, nor should, do for children. Parenting is hard enough these days without having to fight and counter what adults, who are not in any way (legally, financially, emotionally) responsible for our children, are "teaching."

https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/educations-enduring-love-affair-luxury-beliefs

You’re ridiculous. The sign didn’t say, “Your parents don’t want you to read this book so you should defy them.”

It says some adults don’t want you to read it. That’s entirely true. My kid would know it is not about me because I’m not a narrow minded reactionary book banner.

And yes, it is completely appropriate for librarians to have an us vs them mentality when it comes to book banning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It wasn’t just the principal. The Region 1 superintendent (Doug Tyson) issued a separate apology as well. It’s just sad they feel the need to apologize for looking for creative ways to encourage kids to read.

There are many, many other ways to better encourage folks to read than this. C'mon - be better.

Agreed. There are healthy ways to encourage kids to read without putting them against their parents.

+2
And MUCH better written books to encourage kids to read.

Much better written than what? Which books in the Langley display do you believe were poorly written?

Crickets.

Dumb a$$ book banners can't be bothered to actually READ any books. Only ban them.

Beloved had only slightly better writing than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, but did have more titillation.

LOL, it won a Pulitzer and was a National Book Award finalist, but I’m sure you know better.

The narrative style in Beloved is straight out of 80's cheesefest "Highlander" jumping around in time and space so much and blending multiple viewpoints that the reader might as well be riding in the TARDIS.

Beloved depicts rape and violence towards women, described in such detail, so often, as to cause a reader to wonder if Toni was really condemning it, or if this "feminist" had some sort of bizarre masochistic fetish? Feminist fiction has often left me wondering that. Honestly, Toni Morrison's novels seem more like an attempt to shock, stupefy, and play mind games with her readers than to actually tell stories.

The issue with most books like this is that because the author is so devoted to a particular narrative, the persons and stories become secondary and detatched. Instead of letting characters come alive and tell their story, they become puppets and masks of the author. These types of books resonate loudly with those looking for affirmation of their worldview.