BANNED BOOKS WEEK 2014:  September 21-27

A list of the top ten frequently challenged books of 2013 has been released as part of the State of America's Library Report.  Each year, the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles the list to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools.  A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. The number of challenges reflects only incidents reported.  Find the top ten books for 2013 (out of 307 challenges as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom) plus the reasons for their inclusion at http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10#2013

About 6,000 carousels were made in the United States between about 1890 and 1930.  Only about 200 remain today; the rest have been abandoned, destroyed by fire or flood, or broken up and sold to collectors.  On some carousels, like Cafesjian's Carousel in St. Paul, Minnesota, all the figures are horses.  Others, called menagerie machines, feature a variety of animals such as cats, goats, rabbits, ostriches, pigs, giraffes, and deer.  If the figures go up and down as the carousel turns, they are called jumpers.  If they are bolted to the floor, they are called standers.  Some carousels with standers made the ride more interesting by inviting riders on the outside row to try to catch a brass ring.  Carousel experts generally speak of three styles of carousel figures:  Philadelphia style, Coney Island style and County Fair style.
Philadelphia style:  The bodies of Philadelphia style animals tend to be large, strong and realistic. They were carved by men--mostly German immigrants--working for one of several companies in Philadelphia's Germantown section.  The first of these companies was founded by carver Gustav Dentzel and operated later by his sons William and Edward. Daniel C. Muller was another influential carver and carousel builder.  Nearby, the Philadelphia Toboggan Company employed some influential carvers of its own.
Coney Island style:  The bodies of Coney Island animals tend to be more slender and stylized than their Philadelphia counterparts.  Manes are more fanciful, expressions are more spirited and trappings are often studded with jewels.  Among the famous creators of Coney Island style figures are Charles Looff, Marcus Illions and Charles Carmel.

County Fair style:  County Fair figures generally have very small and slender bodies because they were placed on carousels that were taken apart and moved every week or so, making the circuit of fairs and festivals.  Among the best-known manufacturers of these portable carousels are the Herschell-Spillman Company of North Tonawanda, New York, and the C.W. Parker Company of Leavenworth, Kansas.   http://www.ourfaircarousel.org/america'scarousels.html  

Opened in 1990, the Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky, Ohio got its start thanks to a simple stamp.  In 1988, the U.S. Postal Service issued a set of four stamps commemorating carousel figures from around the country.  One of those featured was the King Armored horse at Cedar Point’s Kiddieland carousel.  To celebrate the first-day issue of the stamps, a group of residents decided to throw a party.  They put together a carousel display, hoping a few hundred people would attend.   Instead, more than 2,000 showed up.  Now, the Merry-Go-Round Museum is filled with a menagerie of carousel animals including the traditional “painted ponies”, ostriches, giraffes, and a “sealobster.”   http://www.clueintocleveland.com/2014/08/06/my-lakeerielove-story-a-merry-visit-to-sandusky-ohio/  See pictures of Sandusky, Ohio's Merry-Go-Round Museum set in a former post office building at http://www.merrygoroundmuseum.org/ and http://meredithhaleart.blogspot.com/2014/07/sanduskys-merry-go-round-museum.html

kit and kaboodle   Caboodle has a complicated history.  It’s been spelt down the years in many different ways, and these days is usually listed in dictionaries with an initial “c”.  It means a collection of objects, sometimes of people.  It commonly turns up in the whole caboodle, meaning “the whole lot”.  It’s recorded in the US from the middle of the nineteenth century.  It’s probable that the word was originally boodle, with the phrase being the whole kit and boodle, but that the initial sound “k” was added to boodle for euphony.  http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-who2.htm 

Alliterative phrases:  She sells sea-shells down by the sea-shore; Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers; give up the ghost; good as gold; pleased as punch; strut your stuff

Alliterative brand names:  Dunkin’ Donuts; PayPal; Best Buy; Coca-Cola; Bed Bath & Beyond; Krispy Kreme

Alliterative characters:  Porky Pig; Lois Lane; Lex Luthor; Clark Kent; Donald Duck; Spongebob Squarepants

In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme.  The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of theGermanic languages, where scholars use the term 'alliterative poetry' rather broadly to indicate a tradition which not only shares alliteration as its primary ornament but also certain metrical characteristics.  The Old English epic Beowulf, as well as most other Old English poetry, the Old High German Muspilli, the Old Saxon Heliand, the Old Norse Poetic Edda, and many Middle English poems such as Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the Alliterative Morte Arthur all use alliterative verse.  Find about rules, forms and revivals at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliterative_verse  

Prosody is the rhythm and sounds used in poetry.

Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated a "nationality" by its Statute of Autonomy.  Catalonia comprises four provinces:  Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona.  The capital and largest city is Barcelona, the second largest city in Spain, and the centre of one of the largest metropolitan areas in Europe, and it comprises most of the territory of the former Principality of Catalonia, with the remainder now part of France.  Catalonia is bordered by France and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, and the Spanish regions of Aragon and the Valencian Community to west and south respectively.  The official languages are Spanish, Catalan, and Aranese (an Occitan dialect). 

Read much more and see pictures at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia

On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key composed the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner" after witnessing the massive overnight British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. Key, an American lawyer, watched the siege while under detainment on a British ship and penned the famous words after observing with awe that Fort McHenry's flag survived the 1,800-bomb assault.  After circulating as a handbill, the patriotic lyrics were published in a Baltimore newspaper on September 20, 1814.  Key's words were later set to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven," a popular English song. Throughout the 19th century, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was regarded as the national anthem by most branches of the U.S. armed forces and other groups, but it was not until 1916, and the signing of an executive order by President Woodrow Wilson, that it was formally designated as such.  In March 1931, Congress passed an act confirming Wilson's presidential order, and on March 3 President Hoover signed it into law.  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-star-spangled-banner-becomes-official 

When I couldn't answer a trivia question about which president signed the law making the Star Spangled Banner the national anthem, I typed in list u.s. presidents and went to 1931, because one thing I remembered was that it happened in 1931.  Find a list of presidents and vice-presidents at http://www.presidentsusa.net/presvplist.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1191  September 15, 2014  On this date in 1835, the  HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reached the Galápagos Islands.  The ship landed at Chatham or San Cristobal, the easternmost of the archipelago.  On this date in 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote a letter to Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation.