Adams Press BookBlog

Writing in the New York Times,  Verlyn Klinkenborg sings the praises both of electronic and traditionally produced ink-on-paper books. Of printed books, he appreciates that  “[t]hey do nothing. . .what I really love is their inertness. . .The book is the book, whereas, in electronic formats, the book often seems to be merely the text.”

Regarding e-books, Klinkenborg confesses, “The truth is that I need. . .help to keep reading, especially as much as I always have. The question isn’t what will books become in a world of electronic reading. The question is what will become of the readers we’ve been—quiet, thoughtful, patient, abstracted—in a world where interactive can be too tempting to ignore.”

Are there so many bells-and-whistles distractions inherent in electronic books that our abilities as readers are diminished? JK

JK :: Apr.15.2010 :: literacy / right to read, book publishing :: No Comments »

Once again it’s Banned Books Week.

Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Karin Perry cautions, “It takes only one—one parent, one family, one community member—to deprive [a child’s] right to read.” Your child. My child. All children.

Perry points out 85 books—most are commonly known to all of us—that have been placed on the American Library Association’s Banned Book list at the insistence of  zealots who are bent on preserving the moral purity of our youth, a purity promoted by self-appointed guardians who are determined to save our young people from (gasp!) ideas that differ from those of their protectors. Check out this list of banned books, and you’ll probably be surprised and disheartened to find just how much objectionable material you’ve been reading during the past several years. JK

JK :: Sep.30.2009 :: literacy / right to read, book publishing :: No Comments »

Back in the dark ages of my early career, a few decades ago, I taught “survival skills” language arts (how to read newspaper classified ads, product instructions, job applications) in Ohio’s only maximum security prison. It was a terrible place—think “The Shawshank Redemption”—that opened in the early 1830s; once housed 28 of the Civil War’s Morgan’s Raiders and, 35 years later, writer O. Henry and then Dr. Sam Sheppard in 1954; and was first condemned as uninhabitable in 1902 and again in 1950. In the 1960s it remained open and still accommodated well over 5,000 inmates in an institution originally built for a maximum population of 1,200. It’s long gone now, replaced after a century and a half of “service” by—what else?—a parking lot.

The illiteracy rate at the Ohio Penitentiary in the sixties was around 40 percent, meaning more than 800 incarcerated men could do little more than sign their names. About 25 percent were hard pressed to tell one letter from another. Many were desperate to learn to read. I suspect the situation may be worse today; it’s certainly no better.

An article in the Christian Science Monitor indicates our nation’s literacy statistics today remain disturbingly low: “About 30 million people—14 percent of the U.S. population 16 and older—have trouble with basic reading and writing. ” Let’s hope for all our sakes that we’ll soon see an end to the misbegotten and poorly administered,  teach-to-the-test No Child Left Behind initiative of recent years. Congress is now revising “the Workforce Investment Act, which includes a section to help fund adult literacy and basic education programs.”

It wouldn’t hurt to let your representatives and senators know how badly schools all over the country need meaningful reform. I’m going to. JK

JK :: May.18.2009 :: literacy / right to read :: No Comments »

John Keilman, once a voracious reader of books, used to lose himself in novels seemingly written by the pound. Now he finds his mind wandering after just a few pages.

Keilman’s patience runs out, and he can’t sustain interest long enough to plow through anything much longer than a text message. Although he reads all the time, the words are on screen: BlackBerry, Google, Kindle, Twitter, and iPhone vie for his attention, and he no longer has the endurance of a long-distance reader. Asking, “Is the novel too much for [a] tweet-addled brain?” Keilman cites research showing that the immediacy of online reading may actually alter the brain’s ability to absorb information. He wonders “what will happen to us when we stop reading books not because we don’t want to, but because we can’t.” JK

JK :: May.11.2009 :: literacy / right to read, book publishing :: No Comments »

Some of us book lovers tend to consider those who get most of their information online to be nonreaders. We especially deplore the fact that many kids and teens turn to the Internet first for fun, facts, and fundamentals. Given a choice, would I first consult the S volume of my encyclopedia or click on Wikipedia to learn about Swaziland? Because I have access to both, I’d probably use both. But if I wanted to find out the latest innovations in laser surgery, I’d go online because I would likely find the most up-to-date information.

I’m fortunate that I’m equally comfortable in front of a book or a computer screen. Many kids, however, go straight to the computer, and a lot of parents are beginning to wonder if this is creating a generation of  nonreaders. Reading about a subject on the Internet is different from reading about it in a book. The Internet’s style often uses short sentences, bulleted lists, outline formats. Someone reading online expects information to be immediately accessible, to the point, and short. Mostly short. Someone reading a book expects more narrative, greater description, and a developed use of language.

Does this mean that Internet readers never really appreciate or even learn how to use descriptive language to weave a beginning, a middle, and an end into a clear idea or understandable document? Even more important, does the shortcut style of Internet sites prevent users from really learning how to read and write full sentences and logical paragraphs?

These questions are “at the heart of a passionate debate about what it means to read in the digital age. The discussion is playing out among educational policy makers and reading experts around the world and within groups like the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association.” Read more.

I have to say that I agree with the points the experts make. We all must value different kinds of reading for different kinds of reasons. And both the Internet and a good book have their places in our increasingly complex world. AK

JK :: Sep.24.2008 :: literacy / right to read, book publishing :: No Comments »

The San Jose Mercury News reports that the Texas Board of Education in November was concerned to find that elementary math textbooks the state selected for use in its schools next year contain 109, 263 errors. Seventy-nine percent–86,000!–of those errors occurred in books produced by Houghton Mifflin, one of the country’s leading manufacturers of educational materials. Bob Craig, R-Lubbock, drew laughter from his fellow board members when he asked, “How can you make 86,000 errors in your textbooks? How do you do that?”

The publishers vowed to correct the mistakes by spring–well before school begins next fall. They’d better. The state has warned them they’ll impose fines of as much as $5,000 apiece for errors that make it through to finished books. JK

JK :: Dec.15.2007 :: literacy / right to read, book publishing :: No Comments »

So says Dana Gioia, National Endowment for the Arts chairperson. She adds, “Electronic media, such as television and computers, are threatening the printed word . . . As more and more competing media are introduced into kids’ lives, adults’ lives, these things make it more difficult to find the time to read.”

According to Bloomberg.com, quoting a study completed by the NEA, “Americans aged 15 to 24 on average spend two hours a day watching TV and only seven minutes on leisure reading, reducing their chances for high-paying jobs and community service’”

So there you have it: The time you, your child, or your grandchild spends reading translates directly into greater earning power. JK

JK :: Nov.20.2007 :: literacy / right to read :: No Comments »

Imagine having instant access to 15 million books! That’s the plan once Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo scan entire libraries of books, compile and organize them, and make them available through their Web sites.

The widest possible dissemination of knowledge is always a good thing, right? Or is it?

The New York Times says: “Although Google is making public-domain books readily available to individuals who wish to download them, [Brewster Kahle, founder and director of the Internet Archive,] and others worry about the possible implications of having one company store and distribute so much public-domain content.

“‘Scanning the great libraries is a wonderful idea, but if only one corporation controls access to this digital collection, we’ll have handed too much control to a private entity,’ Mr. Kahle said.

“The Open Content Alliance, he said, ‘is fundamentally different, coming from a community project to build joint collections that can be used by everyone in different ways.’

“Mr. Kahle’s group focuses on out-of-copyright books, mostly those published in 1922 or earlier. Google scans copyrighted works as well, but it does not allow users to read the full text of those books online, and it allows publishers to opt out of the program.”

This is an issue of major importance to authors (royalties, distribution); domestic and foreign researchers (access, security); public and private libraries (costs, collections); publishers (copyright, piracy). My guess is that a lot of lawyers have a lot of work ahead of them. JK

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Watch the short movie at Open Content Alliance to see how books can be accessed through internet storage systems. The film also describes the process for creating a “ten-minute book,” that is, a bound book printed on-site at a library from down-loaded files.

JK :: Oct.22.2007 :: literacy / right to read, book publishing :: No Comments »

Lillian Bond, age 13, wrote of a shocking event in her life: “In fifth grade I read To Kill a Mockingbird and made the mistake of reading in class.” [Harper Lee’s novel about a six-year-old girl in the racist South ranks Number 40 on the American Library Association’s list of Most Frequently Challenged Books.]

“My teacher confiscated the book and gave it to my mother, along with a speech about how my mom should be more careful about the things I read. The book was back in my hands the moment we walked out of the classroom. My mom has never tried to restrict my reading.

“I have read books like Smack [Melvin Burgess’s novel about a young couple’s descent into heroin addiction] and Ophelia Speaks [Sara Shandler’s nonfiction collection subtitled Adolescent Girls Write About Their Search for Self], but I do not dwell on them.

“By limiting our understanding, by holding us back, you are really pushing us closer to chaos. You are making us naive. You would never refuse to let us read parables from the Bible. Well, these books are parables, too. They show the light and the dark.” more…

Celebrate Banned Books Week by browsing through the latest Harry Potter, rereading Hamlet or Slaughterhouse Five, or giving a kid The Diary of Anne Frank. They’re all on the list–along with many others, including several classics of literature. JK

JK :: Sep.29.2007 :: literacy / right to read :: No Comments »

The flap over the Bureau of Prison’s Standardized Chapel Library Project (see A Muslim, a Christian, and a Jew) has continued to grow, and the BPO has been forced by public opinion to rethink its decision about what religious works it allows to be shelved in federal prison libraries.

American Library Association releases statement on removal of religious texts American Library Association (ALA) President Loriene Roy called on the Bureau of Prisons to immediately halt its removal of religious texts from prison libraries and return removed books to the library shelves. “We are outraged to learn that the Bureau of Prisons is removing religious texts from prison chapel libraries based solely on whether or not the books are on a short list of ‘approved’ religious books. A government agency should not have the right to determine what religious texts are ‘appropriate’ when our Constitution promises not only freedom of speech but also freedom of religion. Moreover, it is illogical that the Bureau of Prisons is removing the very resources that may help incarcerated persons change their lives for the better. The idea that removing religious books will create better citizens is ridiculous, and goes against the democratic fiber of our society.” more…

Prisons to Restore Purged Religious Books NEW YORK TIMES - WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Facing pressure from religious groups, civil libertarians and members of Congress, the federal Bureau of Prisons has decided to return religious materials that had been purged from prison chapel libraries because they were not on the bureau’s lists of approved resources. The bureau had said it was prompted to remove the materials after a 2004 Department of Justice report mentioned that religious books that incite violence could infiltrate chapel libraries. After the details of the removal became widely known this month, Republican lawmakers, liberal Christians and evangelical talk shows all criticized the government for creating a list of acceptable religious books. more…

JK :: Sep.27.2007 :: literacy / right to read :: No Comments »