🥇 Library Champion Newsletter #86 | The War on Books 📚
Library Champion,
👋 Welcome to our new subscribers! I am SO GLAD to have you aboard!
The War on Books 📚
I was texting a friend over the weekend, sharing a link to yet another book-banning dispute, this time in Texas (the #1 state in America for the number of books banned in school classrooms and libraries.) Several books in 3 Texas libraries were removed, only to later be ordered by a judge to be put back on the shelves. This isn't an isolated incident; I come across stories just like this each and every day, all across America.
During that text message thread, the following phrase suddenly came to my mind: this is the war on books.
As Americans, we are afforded many freedoms. The 1st and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution were brought up in the Texas book-banning dispute; the residents who wanted the books returned said removing books because you disagree with their content violates those amendment rights.
At the Juniata County Library, we purchase and manage our library collection based on our collection development policy. We have a Freedom to Read Statement and abide by the Library Bill of Rights. We promote your freedom to read.
Just as you wouldn't want someone else telling you or your family what you can read or even have access to, let us respect each others' freedoms and unite against book banning.
Each time this newsletter gets sent out I will dedicate a space to this ongoing issue. If you come across a story about book challenges or bans, please send it my way: vgiordano@juniatalibrary.org
Homeschool Hangout: 04/05 at 10:00AM
Tomorrow is our next Homeschool Hangout at 10:00 am. We'll be joined by some wonderful volunteers from the Juniata County Historical Society to talk about family trees and ancestry. If your family plans to attend, they ask that you bring along a list of your family members names as far back as you'd like to go! See you tomorrow!
Library closed for Good Friday
The library will be closed this Friday, April 7th in observance of Good Friday. The library will reopen Saturday at 9:00 AM and also be open Monday.
Click here to view a list of all of our holiday closures for 2023.
Passport Services at the Library! ✈️
Make an appointment at the Juniata County Library to get or renew your passport!
Visit our website to learn more about this new service and how you can get a passport or renew your passport.
Passport agents: Vince Giordano, Christine May and Mercedes Berrier
Book of the week! – if you are going to read one book, give this one a try…
Luck of the Draw: My Story of the Air War in Europe by Frank Murphy
(New adult nonfiction: memoir, military, World War 2)
After Pearl Harbor, Murphy enlisted in the Army Air Corps because “it was clear…that long-range bombing would play a major role in how the war would be fought.” Trained as a navigator, he was shipped off to an air base in England, part of a flood of young men, many still in their teens, who flew aircraft that were guinea pigs of sorts; it would be only a couple of years into the war that radar was sufficiently effective that Allied air crews could bomb on more than the rare cloudless days.
As Murphy writes, crouched in a cramped B-17, he witnessed plenty of horrors as aircraft collided, were hit by anti-aircraft artillery or Luftwaffe fighters, or crashed. After parachuting into a German field, he was collected by police and sent to the infamous Stalag Luft III. Murphy’s portrait of how discipline was maintained in the camp is especially well crafted. For example, he writes about one captured general in charge who, coincidentally, had knowledge of the ULTRA code-breaking project but, despite constant interrogation by their captors, deprived them of “the biggest intelligence coup of the Second World War.”
Bottom line: Frank Murphy's story in Luck of the Draw will be featured in the TV series Masters of the Air, from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. It also inspired the 1963 film The Great Escape.
Borrow the book: Luck of the Draw: My Story of the Air War in Europe by Frank Murphy
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Thank you for being a library champion. You make a difference each day!
--Vince Giordano
Librarian and Director of the Juniata County Library.
P.S.- You don't need to make an account or jump through any hoops to donate to the library and become a library champion. I wouldn't say this if it wasn't true. You can make this happen in less than a minute. Just click here.