The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy for $2.99
Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor for $2.99
Date Me, Bryson Keller by Kevin van Whye for $1.99
Wandering In Strange Lands by Morgan Jerkins for $1.99
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14 min read
Photograph of a mural dedicated to Charlie Hutchison, painted on the wall of Coffee#1 which opened in 2021, Witney, Oxfordshire. Image taken in April 2022.
“I am half Black, I grew up in the National Children’s Home and Orphanage. Fascism meant hunger and war”.
Of the countless people born in Oxfordshire, few lived such an incredible life as Charlie Hutchison. Born in 1918, Charlie became the only known Black British man to have fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War. He was also among the first to travel to Spain, one of the youngest, and also one of the longest serving volunteers. His life-long hatred of fascism would bring him to participate in many key events in history, including the Battle of Cable Street, the Dunkirk Evacuation, the liberation of France and Italy. During WWII he also took part in the liberation of Belsen concentration camp. Charlie spent 10 years fighting a bloody crusade against various fascist movements throughout Europe. Once returning to Britain he married the love of his life and started a family, living the rest of his life as an activist involved in anti-apartheid, nuclear disarmament, and trade unionism.
Despite all his achievements, his life story had gone entirely unnoticed by Oxford historians until very recently. When the Oxford Spanish Civil War Memorial was unveiled in 2017, Charlie Hutchison was not recognised among the 31 known people with links to Oxfordshire to whom the memorial had been dedicated to. Despite being overlooked by professional historians, his achievements were eventually made public knowledge in 2019 thanks to a project by London school children.
Note: This article contains never-before published photographs of Charlie Hutchison, provided by Charlie Hutchison’s daughter Susan Lilian Small and published on the Museum of Oxford website with her permission.
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Marcus, Vish and Jim have the keys to your weekend on another edition of the Preview Show, sponsored by Betway!
We recap last night’s action, as David Moyes booted West Ham’s European hopes into space and the Rangers surge continues. We also look ahead to another weekend of relegation quicksand and that tasty two-way title tilt. Join us!
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A crucial tool for library workers is a strong, updated collection development policy. If it’s been several years since visiting whatever is in place, it is more than worth it to pull it out and update it as your library continues to grow and evolve. It’s vital to keep this updated all the time, but especially during a censorship friendly era, as a collection development policy lays the groundwork for the materials being selected and de-selected and offers patrons a guide to what they can or should expect. But in addition to a strong and current collection development policy, something each and every library needs is an up-to-date, solid challenge policy (also known as a reconsideration policy)/book challenge form.
For decades, the American Library Association (ALA) has provided a reconsideration form template. It offers all of the basics, and gives those who wish to exercise their rights to contest material to do so. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. A healthy democracy encourages input from an array of individuals.
But in an era of increased censorship with no anticipated cooling in sight, it’s time that challenge forms and policies are overhauled across the country.
The purpose of a challenge policy is to protect the professionals within an institution and to protect the rights of those whose tax money funds those institutions. Challenge policies uphold the First Amendment rights of all individuals while providing a formal avenue to address concerns in a uniform manner. This uniformity and consistency is important, as the leading reason for book bans in school libraries right now is a district either choosing not to follow or ignoring their policies for challenges all together. PEN America reports that only 11 school districts have followed their own policies consistently and that doing so reduced the number of books banned in those institutions.
One of the weaknesses in ALA’s template policy and discussion of book challenge policies more broadly is that it allows informal complaints. Informal complaints could be anything from showing up to a board meeting to read offending passages out loud to a parent telling a librarian they are disgusted by a particular title being available. These informal complaints are to be treated the same as a formal complaint. That leaves the door wide open to interpretation from individuals, as well as for administrative overreach (as has been seen again and again).
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A good comic is a good comic, as much as a good novel is a good novel. But there are far too few books which offer the best of both worlds and this is particularly true in YA. It’s rare to find books that offer both a visual element and a narrative, without being either one or the other. Illustrated YA books are a fun twist on format and form, and they allow for pushing not only style boundaries but genre and narrative boundaries as well. They’re works of art in not only the sense that a book is itself a work of art, but also in the sense that they demand the reader consider both art and prose separately — and in conjunction. Why was the choice made to interweave both, rather than choose a more common format?
It’s a shame there are so few illustrated books that aren’t comics in the world beyond picture books, but they do exist. We live in a world that presents multimedia experiences daily, and illustrated YA books allow readers to experience a story in a fresh, creative way.
Let’s take a look at some outstanding examples of illustrated YA books. Some of these are going to lean into art more heavily than prose and yet still offer a reading experience wholly encapsulating of the teen years and all that adolescence has to bring. These books cross genres and category, inviting fiction and nonfiction readers something to seek out and enjoy. And bonus: for teen readers, most of these are developed in a common trim size, so they don’t look or feel like picture books, a common complaint about YA nonfiction prior to the last decade or so.
Note that this list is a little whiter than it should be. I suspect the work included here published by Reynolds and Acevedo will usher in more creative works blending art and prose in the coming years.
How can a three-sentence poem cover everything in contemporary society from racism to the pandemic to Black Lives Matter to what it is to be a family? The answer might be this powerhouse of a collaboration between two incredible Jasons. Told over the course of nearly 400 pages, this book includes incredible illustrations by Griffin that tell as much of the story as Reynolds’s three short lines.
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There are a few immovable truths in the literary community. No two people will read the same story without diverging at least a little in interpretation. Battles between format purists will rage on. Depending on who you’re talking to, color-coding your books will make you either a style icon or a monster, there’s no in-between. And May is Short Story Month.
Here’s the thing: up until, oh, a few days ago, I had no idea why May is Short Story Month. My initial Google search showed nothing but very enthusiastic blogs and websites sharing their plans for the month: we’ll be reading this, reviewing that, and so on and so forth. But I only had to dig a little deeper to find the father of this idea. (Too grandiose? I really like short stories.)
This is pretty self-explanatory. Short Story Month is a month dedicated to the short story form. It is celebrated by readers and authors alike: the former set out to read as many short stories as possible, while the latter typically set a goal for how many short stories they’ll write. The overachievers often write a short story per day.
On April 7, 2007, Dan Wickett, founder and editor of the Emerging Writers Network (EWN), published a post titled “Short Story Month?”. Drawing inspiration from April being National Poetry Month, Wickett decided to devote the following month to one of his favorite narrative forms by reading and reviewing a short story a day.
Initially, this was meant to be only on EWN, but the book community surprised him. Within days, other blogs and websites had picked up the baton.
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Getting youth to read over the summer can sometimes be a challenge. Luckily, there are several fun and non-stressful ideas out there to keep them engaged with reading. In my opinion, striving for a particular number of books or meticulously noting down which books you’ve read may not be the approach for you and may actually increase the amount of stress you have. Reading one book over the summer might be what you’re aiming for, with the goal to enjoy yourself. That’s why I hope these summer reading program ideas provide some inspiration and enjoyment when it comes to reading for fun this summer.
Getting students to read in fun, unique places can entice them to take part in different summer reading programs. Having prizes for the coolest places can also be effective. In the past I’ve had a lot of success with this one, with students having their pictures taken on trampolines, up trees, even in dryers (definitely don’t encourage that one). I usually put an asterisk on these ones as I hope students can provide a review of the book they’ve chosen with the picture, considering the whole idea is for them to choose a book they love!
This one can be tricky but worth it, in my opinion. I get students and staff to choose one book to read over the summer. I try to get them to choose in May or June so I can get more copies of the book. I also strongly encourage them to visit local libraries to borrow the book. I then post regular updates about the book over the summer in the attempt to create a shared experience. The uptake on this program might not be massive but if a student or parent wants to be involved I will do everything I can to get the book into their hands. It’s a lot of fun to get students to vote on which book will be the summer read.
I’ve written before about this great program. This works with younger students, teens, and definitely adults. I get people to tell me their favourite genre, which can be anything. I will then take a book from our shelves, wrap it up, and deliver it to them before the end of the school year. I ask that the teachers and students write a review of the book on a recipe / display card that I can then put on display in September. It’s a lot of fun and works really well.
This has to have some clarification. I do not recommend giving away weeded books that are so ratty that they look like the Dead Sea Scrolls. In my experience, we sometimes have books that are in great condition but never circulate for reasons that no one will ever understand. These books might find a home somewhere if they are simply moved to a different location or seen in a different light. This is why I recommend giving them away as part of a relaxed summer reading program. I cannot stress enough the impact of giving away books can have on students: they really love getting books. Having a table of good quality weeded books is a great way to keep them reading over the summer.
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There’s a lot going on in every wine glass. This overpriced grape juice has a long history, with some wineries dating back hundreds of years. Oenology (winemaking) has been developing for centuries, and today there has never been more choice among wine. Reading books for beginning wine drinkers will make the wall of wines in your local store far less intimidating.
Unfortunately, wine is still a privileged world that has only been welcoming to non-white, non-male people very recently. Wine experts Desiree Harris-Brown, Tish Wiggins, and Julia Coney have not yet published books, but they provide a necessary perspective as women of color in the historically exclusionary industry.
Wine just doesn’t need to be as pretentious as some people make it out to be. Most wine store owners want to help you find a bottle that you’ll like at their store so you’ll keep coming back — it’s in their best interest to help you. They’re also generally enthusiastic about wine and want you to enjoy it, too. If you want to arm yourself with some background knowledge before entering the store and staring at the shelf of wines, these books will get you started and give some good direction.
There are no rules written in stone that an expensive bottle of wine must pair with an expensive meal. Taste buds are universal, and Vanessa Price seeks to make exciting pairings between wine and food that will delight wine drinkers of any level. Pairing wine varietals with Cheetos or other common foods gives tasters the language to understand the tastes they’re picking up on in wine.
The newest edition of Wine Folly expands on the best information from the first volume and adds even more regional information for a budding wine taster. The illustrations and maps give an engaging visual guide to the ways wines are made and classified before they go out into the world. The book also includes an etiquette lesson about tasting with explanations of why the various steps are important to tasting. If you’re looking for a guide to break down the way wines taste and why, this is a great place to start.
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This article is adapted from the forthcoming book No Choice: The Past, Present, and Perilous Future of Abortion in America, published by Hachette Book Group.
In Justice Alito’s leaked draft opinion that, if made official as a decision this summer would overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, he refers repeatedly to “this Nation’s history and tradition” as being at odds with abortion rights.
It begs the question: Whose history, precisely, is Alito considering here?
Our history encompasses so much beyond the white supremacist ideals our nation was founded upon.Too often, when “this Nation’s history and tradition” is boiled down into such a broad generalization, it’s the “history and tradition” of the white Christian men who have held power in the United States since its inception. But make no mistake, this country does not belong to them alone, and our history encompasses so much beyond their experiences and beyond the white supremacist ideals our nation was founded upon.
Before this land was stolen by colonizers who called it America, it belonged to Native peoples who had inhabited it for centuries. And, as it turns out, people indigenous to America have a long, intimate “history and tradition” related to abortion and reproductive care. For one, they shared knowledge of which herbs can help a woman control her body. Stoneseed and dogbane, which have natural contraceptive properties, were used by the Shoshone peoples and the Bodéwadmi to prevent pregnancy. Studies of indigenous cultures also turn up evidence of commonplace abortion practices—a South American matrilocal native tribe known as the Wichí reportedly abort the first pregnancy of any tribal member; it’s a matter of routine, to make the childbirths that follow easier. North American native tribes, too, have documented abortion practices that prioritize the health and well-being of the person carrying the fetus and their quality of life.
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More than two years after the start of the pandemic, the United States has reached a staggering milestone: 1 million Americans dead from Covid-19.
Since March 2020, the coronavirus has radically reshaped life. We live in a limbo of individualized choices. Each state, workplace, and person has adopted different norms of masking, distancing, and communing. The pandemic has been different for each of us.
Research varies, but estimates show that a majority of Americans know someone who has been hospitalized from or died of Covid. That toll is higher for Black and Hispanic Americans. (As my colleague Jackie Flynn Mogensen has reported, knowledge of racial disparities doesn’t necessarily get white people to care.)
The virus began in an era of ignorance. It spread amid the political inadequacy of the administration of President Donald Trump, who lied about Covid continually. Mass death became normalized amid the political complacency of the Biden administration.
The death toll has far outpaced scientists’ worst fear. When the pandemic began, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that estimates could change, but that getting up to 1 million or 2 million deaths would be “almost certainly off the chart.” It was “not impossible, but very, very unlikely,” he said.
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