Sunday Salon: February is here

Weather: This morning it is very foggy but it is supposed to be sunny with cool temperatures when it burns off. This is the break between storms.

Death of a beloved pet: We had to put our cat, Demi, to sleep this past week. I put together a tribute of her on this post --- Goodbye to a Beloved Pet. My heart is broken. She was my special girl. 

Books read:

• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles -- We just selected this for an upcoming book club. Audio and print. Fantastic. Audio.
  
• The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig. A reread. I still love it. Print.
  

Reviews completed:

• The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
• Beautiful Country: a Memoir by Qian Julie Wang
• Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
  

Currently reading:

• The Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley. The 2022 Printz Award winner for best YA novel of the year. Helen Murdoch and I are do a read-along together. Print. 20%
• Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman. The poet who spoke at Biden's Inauguration. This is her first collection of poetry. Most of the poems so far have been about the pandemic and about being in lcokdowns. Print 20%.
• Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert. Another nonfiction book about climate change and our life on earth. Audio. 5%
  

In the mail, two short books to read in the shortest month:

• A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers
• A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow
  

Emergency!!!! We've got to do something to stop all this book banning? It is insane what is happening today with school boards banning books and passing laws that disallow teachers teaching anything that would make white people feel bad about themselves. I am so, so worried for the fate of our country if we keep going down this path. Today, if you have a few extra dollars in your account, order a banned/censored book, read it, and review it on your blog or on your social media pages. This has got to stop. Find a book from any of these lists: ALA Top Challenged books of 2020; 16-pages of books challenged in a Texas school district;  Maus, which was removed from an 8th grade unit in Tennessee; or any of the books I've listed below. Click the hyperlink to read my review:

• All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson
• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
• Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuah
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian (and other books by) Sherman Alexie
  
• Something Happened In Our Town: A Child's Story About Racial Injustice by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard, illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin.
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas 
• Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  

Book Banning closes minds. Self censorship is a much better idea. Don't remove books from library shelves, just don't check out the ones you don't want to read!

Maus is about the Holocaust. Why would anyone not want their children to know about that?

-Anne