BPL Podcast

Book Banning and Censorship in America with Grace Ellis and Sabrina Baêta

Banned Books Week is an annual celebration of the freedom to read. The theme for Banned Books Week 2023 is “Let Freedom Read” and it’s being celebrated from October 1-7. A PEN America report for the first half of the 2022-2023 school year tracked 1,477 instances of individual book bans that have affected 874 unique titles. Book bans disproportionately target authors of color, LGBTQ+ authors, and other marginalized groups. Books about racism, sexuality, gender, and history have been removed from library shelves across America. In today’s episode, we talk to Sabrina Baêta from PEN America and author Grace Ellis about the current state of book banning in America, the impact that book bans have on creators, libraries, and young readers, and what we can do to stand up against book bans and protect the freedom to write, read, and access information. Grace Ellis will be at the Bexley Public Library on Wednesday, October 4 at 7:00 PM for a Conversation on Censorship to celebrate Banned Books Week.

Grace Ellis is a New York Times-bestselling, GLAAD Media Award–winning author and script writer. Born and raised in Ohio, she studied theater and journalism at The Ohio State University. Her graphic novels include the much-lauded "Lumberjanes," the long-running "Moonstruck," and several pieces for DC Comics. Her latest book, "Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith," was a New York Times Notable Book of 2022 and won the 2023 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work. In 2022, Grace was given an Ohio Individual Excellence Award in playwriting for "Holding It Together," a site-specific play for high schools. Her next DC book, DIANA AND THE HERO’S JOURNEY, is out this fall. In 2023, she wrote the play “EXPLICIT CONTENT FOR TEENS,” about the fall out of a play’s censorship in a public highschool. Grace lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she can often be found eating ice cream or petting a cat.

Sabrina Baêta is a Program Consultant with Freedom to Read at PEN America. She engages in research and awareness-building around censorship attacks on public K-12 education, especially as it relates to literature accessibility in libraries and classrooms. Sabrina graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Music in Voice. She earned her Masters from the University of Central Florida in Nonprofit Management. She is a poet, essayist, and writer and prior to PEN America, worked in educational publishing and in a variety of performing arts and education nonprofits.

Special thanks to fo/mo/deep for lending us their song, "Bourbon Neat" for the podcast!

Find out about upcoming Bexley Public Library events at BexleyLibrary.org

Follow Bexley Public Library across social media platforms @bexleylibrary

 

Understanding Artificial Intelligence - a conversation with Dr. Ness B. Shroff

Ohio State Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor, Ness B. Shroff, and BPL Technology Librarian, Josh Bryant, discuss the fascinating world of artificial intelligence (AI), including its history, applications, ethics, and future implications. Whether you are a complete newcomer to the world of AI or a seasoned expert, there will be something for everyone in this enlightening and informative discussion.

Watch Dr. Shroff take the AI quiz here!

Special thanks to fo/mo/deep for lending us their song, "Bourbon Neat" for the podcast!

Find out about upcoming Bexley Public Library events at BexleyLibrary.org

Follow Bexley Public Library across social media platforms @bexleylibrary

Elizabeth Petuchowski - Where From and Where To

For Holocaust Remembrance Day we pulled an episode from one of our most recent author events with Elizabeth Petuchowski.

Elizabeth Petuchowski shares her life story growing up as a young Jewish girl in Germany amidst the rise of Nazism and mandatory antisemitism. She reflects on the effects these universally known events had on her life and read from her memoir, Where From and Where To: One of the Last Self-Told German Jewish Life Stories. 

 

She is joined by Robin Judd, Associate Professor in The OSU Department of History with expertise in Jewish History and Immigration History, who facilitated the conversation.

 

Special thanks to fo/mo/deep for lending us their song, "Bourbon Neat" for the podcast!

Find out about upcoming Bexley Public Library events at BexleyLibrary.org

Follow Bexley Public Library across social media platforms @bexleylibrary

Celebrating Toni Morrison with Hanif Abdurraqib and Dionne Custer Edwards

A celebration of Toni Morrison with two of Ohio’s most revered poets and authors as Hanif Abdurraqib and Dionne Custer Edwards discuss the influences of Toni Morrison’s work on their own and celebrate the importance of her legacy as writers and Ohioans.

Toni Morrison Day is celebrated on February 18th in Ohio, commemorating the birth of the literary giant and possibly “the greatest Ohioan we’ve ever had,” as Hanif Abdurraqib remembers her. Morrison often used Ohio as a setting for her novels, from examining the influences and disparities of White and Black families living in post-Depression era Lorain in The Bluest Eye to exploring the insidious reach of slavery over the Ohio River in Beloved. Toni Morrison’s writing shed the white gaze and centered stories that explored the terrors, hopes, and dreams of Black lives and communities. 

Hanif Abdurraqib - a 2021 MacArthur Genius' Grant Recipient - is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. He is the author of the poetry collections The Crown Ain't Worth Much, a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and A Fortune For Your Disaster, which won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize, and the essay collections They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, named a best book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others; Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest, a New York Times Bestseller, a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and longlisted for the National Book Award; and A Little Devil In America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, which was shortlisted for the National Book Award. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.

Dionne Custer Edwards is a writer, educator, and the Director of Learning & Public Practice at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Her work in the arts and education spans 25 years, including nearly two decades at the Wex where she pioneered several groundbreaking education programs that include Pages, an art and writing program serving hundreds of high school students a year from across central Ohio. Dionne has received acknowledgments and awards that include professional fellowships with Americans for the Arts, the Jefferson Center for the Arts, and a GCAC Arts Educator of the Year. Dionne is co-editor of a forthcoming book series by Ohio State University Press, On Possibility: Social Change and the Arts + Humanities, with the first issue due out in 2023.

Special thanks to fo/mo/deep for lending us their song, "Bourbon Neat" for the podcast!

Find out about upcoming Bexley Public Library events at BexleyLibrary.org

Follow Bexley Public Library across social media platforms @bexleylibrary

Best of 2022!

The best of 2022! 

Special thanks to fo/mo/deep for lending us their song, "Bourbon Neat" for the podcast!

Find out about upcoming Bexley Public Library events at https://www.bexleylibrary.org

Follow Bexley Public Library across platforms @bexleylibrary

 

Here is the list of highlighted items from the BPL staff:

Fiction Books

• Olga Dies Dreaming - Xochitl Gonzalez
• Flung Out of Space - Grace Ellis
• The Fervor - Alma Katsu
• You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty - Akwaeke Emezi
• This Time Tomorrow - Emma Straub

Non-Fiction Books

• I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jeanette McCurdy
• Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country on Trial - Corban Addison
• Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries - Rick Emerson

Youth

• 0-3 yrs
  • The Hair Book - LaTonya Yvette and Amanda Jane Jones
• 3-6 yrs
  • My Parents Won’t Stop Talking! - Emma Hunsinger and Tillie Walden
  • Mermaid Kenzie: Protector of the Deeps - Charlotte Sherman and Geneva Bowers 
  • Sports Heroes: Inspiring Tales of Athletes Who Stood Up and Out - Mia Cassany and Iker Ayestaran 
• Middle graders 
  • A Taste of Magic - J. Elle
  • A Duet for Home - Karina Yan Glaser
  • Shinji Takahashi and the Mark of the Coatl - Julie Kagawa
• Teen
  • Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao
• Honorable Mentions
  • We Made It All Up - Margot Harrison
  • Once Upon a K-Prom - Kat Cho
  • Loveless - Alice Oseman
• Board Games
  • Builders & Biomes
  • Draftosaurus

Movies

• The Batman
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Top Gun: Maverick
• Nope

Video Games

• Elden Ring
• Raft
• Stray

Music

• Madison Cunningham - Revealer
• Wilco - Cruel Country
• Natalia Lafourcade - De Todas las Flores
• Julian Lage - View with a Room

Vampire Week!

Vampire Week is here! Plucked from our blog, Julianna tells us about her favorite vampire movies and everything the library has to offer this week.

Julianna mentions some of her favorite vampire movies. Here’s a list of them: 

• Interview with the Vampire
• Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
• The Lost Boys
• A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
• Nosferatu
• Only Lovers Left Alive
• Let the Right One In
• Hotel Transylvania
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula
• Let the Right One In

Special thanks to fo/mo/deep for lending us their song, "Bourbon Neat" for the podcast!

Find out about upcoming Bexley Public Library events at BexleyLibrary.org

Follow Bexley Public Library across social media platforms @bexleylibrary

Banned Books - A History

Owen dives into the history of banning books, reasons books are challenged, and he even recommends his favorite challenged title. Here is a list of all the books Owen mentions:

• Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Looking for Alaska by John Green
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Special thanks to fo/mo/deep for lending us their song, "Bourbon Neat" for the podcast!

Find out about upcoming Bexley Public Library events at BexleyLibrary.org

Follow Bexley Public Library across social media platforms @bexleylibrary

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

Pamela Espinosa de los Monteros, Assistant Professor and the Latin American, Iberian, and Latino/a Studies Librarian at The OSU University Libraries, and Patti Vocal, The OSU Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) Outreach Coordinator, discuss the importance of bringing authentic Latinx and Latin American stories into K-12 classrooms through children's literature. Pamela and Patti talk to us about the CLAS BookBox project and share tips on how we can all celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month which is celebrated annually from September 15 - October 15.

Discover more Hispanic Heritage Month resources here.

Special thanks to fo/mo/deep for lending us their song, "Bourbon Neat" for the podcast!

Find out about upcoming Bexley Public Library events at https://www.bexleylibrary.org

Follow Bexley Public Library across social media platforms @bexleylibrary

Celebrating Black Poetry Past and Present

Jack Marchbanks sits down with Dionne Custer Edwards, Scott Woods, and Is Said for a discussion about Black poetry using James Weldon Johnson's groundbreaking anthology The Book of American Negro Poetry as a springboard.

Dionne Custer Edwards is a writer, educator, and the Director of Learning & Public Practice at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Scott Woods is a poet, writer, and the founder and director of the performing arts organization Streetlight Guild, and Columbus poetry legend Is Said, has received the King Arts Complex Legends & Legacies Award and was inducted into the Lincoln Theater Hall of Fame. 

This program is generously funded by Jack Marchbanks and The Kridler Family Fund at The Columbus Foundation.

Special thanks to fo/mo/deep for lending us their song, "Bourbon Neat" for the podcast!

Find out about upcoming Bexley Public Library events at https://www.bexleylibrary.org

Follow Bexley Public Library across platforms @bexleylibrary

The Current: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Ohio State University Eastern European experts, Theodora Dragostinova, Marianna Klochko, and Mykyta Tyshchenko, to try and make sense of the evolving crisis in Ukraine following the Russian invasion.

The panel discussed the history and progression of the conflict, the ensuing humanitarian crisis, and the international repercussions of the events.

Find out about upcoming Bexley Public Library events at https://www.bexleylibrary.org

Follow Bexley Public Library across platforms @bexleylibrary