bookshelves of doom

Challenged in MO: It's Perfectly Normal.

From the Detroit Free Press:

The book, titled “Perfectly Normal,” contains cartoon drawings of naked people and others involved in sexual acts. It’s available at middle school libraries. And although it indicates it’s meant for kids 10 years and up, it’s still making some parents uncomfortable.

“Most of the time, when I showed this to parents, their jaws just hit the floor,” parent Tim Schmidt said. “They were shocked and then their next reaction was outrage.”

The article incorrectly lists the title as Perfectly Normal, and doesn't mention Robie Harris by name, but the somewhat A Current Affair--ish (i.e. fear-mongering, HIGH DRAMA, SCARY PIXELATED IMAGES) segment at KSDK shows the cover of the book.

This is a great example of how much tone and inflection can affect the way that we ingest information: the written article is basically just a transcription of the television spot, but it comes off as pretty dry and straightforward, whereas the televised version of the story comes off as totally leaning in the ZOMG THERE ARE NEKKID CARTOONS IN OUR SCHOOLS WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN direction.

"I have no personal repugnance to the idea of a union with you — but I feel convinced that mine is not the sort of disposition calculated to form the happiness of a man like you."

At Brain Pickings: 

How to Turn Down a Marriage Proposal Like Charlotte Brontë

How to Keep Crickets in a Box: A Tutorial.

Thanks to this Amazon review—and the follow-up/squabbling in the comments—I now have partially-masticated Frosted Mini-Wheats all over my laptop.

Better than crickets all over the house, I guess.

Then again, based on my knowledge of her Grasshopper Dispatch Rate, Lemon would make short work of 1,000 crickets. Is it weird that I'm now morbidly curious about how long it would take?

Anyway. 

That isn't the only bizarre/hilarious review in the section: see also SWEET REVENGE and More ants than crickets.

(Original link via Dangerous Minds)

BACA Alert: Keith Richards.

Oh, Keith.

Why do you want to break my heart?

From the Guardian:

Gus & Me: The Story of My Granddad and My First Guitar is about Richards' grandfather, Theodore Augustus Dupree, who played in a jazz big band and introduced the young Keith to music.

"I have just become a grandfather for the fifth time, so I know what I'm talking about," Keith Richards said. "The bond, the special bond, between kids and grandparents is unique and should be treasured. This is a story of one of those magical moments. May I be as great a grandfather as Gus was to me."

Free resource: Khan Academy now offering SAT prep.

Like pretty much everyone else out there, I love Khan Academy like whoa.

So much that I occasionally go on jags of PRACTICING MY MATH SKILLS, which is TOTALLY OUT OF CHARACTER. But for whatever reason, KA makes it fun, and I find Sal's videos to be both helpful and weirdly soothing.

Anyway, they've partnered with the College Board and created a whole new section devoted to the dreaded SAT. So that's rad.

Relatedly, mental_floss recently posted some excerpts from the very first SAT.

"[Tove] Jansson put her foot down at sanitary towels and Disney."

Bwahahahahaha. I fell over laughing when I read that sentence.

Anyway, it's from an article at the New Yorker about Tove Jansson.

So click on through if you are so inclined!

Free book: It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens.

From Open Culture:

danah boyd (she doesn’t capitalize her name) is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center, where she looks at how young people use social media as part of their everyday lives. She has a new book out called It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, and she’s made it available as a free PDF. On her website she writes, “I didn’t write this book to make money. I wrote this book to reach as wide of an audience as I possibly could.  This desire to get as many people as engaged as possible drove every decision I made throughout this process. One of the things that drew me to Yale [the publisher] was their willingness to let me put a freely downloadable CC-licensed copy of the book online on the day the book came out.”

Related: NPR interview with the author.