Paul's Thing

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer Several months ago a marketing director at HarperCollins read one of my book reviews. She contacted me to ask if I would read and review an advance copy of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, and of [...]

When I started my banned books project in September, I didn’t realize that other people have done similar things.  Searching the web for information on why John Irving’s novel A Prayer for Owen Meany (review below) has been challenged so many times, I stumbled upon a very nice site called Banned Books. Bonnie, the proprietor [...]

When Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, he reportedly said “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.” It’s impossible to overstate the impact Uncle Tom’s Cabin had on mid-19th Century America, indeed the world. Lincoln was dead on. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a barn-burner, even today. What a [...]

The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier Stories for and about adolescents follow certain established conventions. Brave young boys and girls stand up to social and peer pressure, buck conformity, and do the right thing. They look bullies in the eye and the bullies back down. The bad guys lose. The good guys experience adversity but [...]

Last month I decided to read some banned books.  I gave myself a year to finish the project.  I’m sandwiching these books in with my regular reading, rather than tackling them all at once.  One month in, I’ve finished four controversial books for children: And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell Looks [...]

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into a giant insect.” – Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis (1915) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz I didn’t finish it, I’m slightly ashamed to say. It’s sort of a Dominican version of Catcher in the Rye. Four or five [...]

Banned Books Week starts today, September 26, and runs through October 3. So many books have been banned or censored, there’s no way you could read them all.  There have been thousands and thousands, and more join the list every day, thanks for the forces of ignorance and intolerance loose in the land, whipped on [...]

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” – George Orwell, 1984 (1949) A Most Wanted Man, by John le Carré You know what you’re going to get with a John le Carré novel, much as you know what you’re going to get with an Elmore Leonard novel . [...]