![]() Resourcefully we turned to automated acquisitions, focusing on award-winning and notable children's books that are received systematically through an approval plan with our major book vendor - bringing forth the best of the best. Over time, publication proliferated, holdings bulged, and staffing slimmed. Children's books were passed on from our parents, and by us to our kids they grew exponentially in the library during a TC heyday of faculty children's literature specialists and they were eagerly read aloud by countless College members, sometimes by the authors or other special guests, in a magical weekly library story hour for local school children. The seasonal picture sticks with me for years, helping me recall childhood favorites and their prized place on our shelves: Goodnight Moon The Velveteen Rabbit The Little Prince Little Women The Phantom Tollbooth, Trumpet of the Swan, Nancy Drew, Eloise, Curious George, and much much more. Snowflakes settle, stockings come second, and time softly sifts, like sand through an hourglass. Each book contains beautiful illustrations and creative language - to be specially unwrapped under the home tree, complete with real candles in small glass holders - another tradition, I learn, that is passed on through the Franck family of German descent. I wonder which titles are chosen for that now distant year, and I begin to imagine a multitude of picture books over the decades prior. Once sitting around the old oak Planning table on the fifth floor of Russell Hall, Jane, our former library director, quietly shares that every Christmas she and her two grown daughters gift each other a children's book. Mirelle Ortego, Magic: Once Upon a Faraway Land You can feel it in the air, even in a new faraway land. Like when jarochas dance! Magic is everywhere. Like when sounds are woven together into beautiful music. Like when strangers turn into friends and houses into homes. Like when simple ingredients turn into delicious meals. Like when people's hands touch the earth and plant seeds that become fruit. ![]() “The struggle goes on.”Ukrainians and anti-war Russians can also take heart in his message."Sometimes magic is hard to find. Rushdie, recipient of an award for courage, the gala was an opportunity to stand up to the tyranny of his foes. Anti-Russian sentiment has also gripped the West, leading to the cancellation of performances by Russian artists.The Ukrainian writer-soldiers said that they faced legal and ethical restrictions that prevented their participation, and that they weren’t “boycotting.” But the end result was the same: a curtailing of speech by PEN America, ironic for an organization founded to defend free expression.For Mr. Many Ukrainians now have a deep aversion to all things Russian – language, literature, performing arts. Russia’s invasion isn’t just territorial it’s also cultural. “Don’t these folks realize they are on the same side? Literally no one involved in this whole dispute supports Putin or his war, so what are they fighting about?”The sensitivities are understandable. ![]() ![]() Suzanne Nossel, the organization’s CEO, called it “a no-win situation.”To Americans who care deeply about Ukraine while also seeking to defend Russians who have nothing to do with the war or outright oppose it, the PEN America situation is exasperating.“The relentless zero-sum approach is just awful,” says an analyst with long experience in the post-Soviet world, speaking not for attribution. ![]() PEN canceled the panel that included Russians.Acclaimed Russian émigré journalist Masha Gessen quit as vice president of the PEN America board over the episode. The Russians oppose President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine and had left their country shortly after last year’s invasion, but the Ukrainians – both active-duty soldiers – stood firm. Rushdie, who has faced death threats since the 1988 publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” deemed by Iran’s ayatollahs to be blasphemous toward Islam.A clash over free speech had earlier marred PEN America’s World Voices Festival, when two Ukrainian authors threatened not to appear after learning that two Russian writers were participating in a different panel. Salman Rushdie’s surprise appearance at last night’s PEN America Literary Gala – a celebration of free expression – ended a week of controversy on a high note.It was the author’s first public appearance since he was attacked and gravely wounded last August at a literary festival in western New York.“It’s nice to be back,” said Mr. ![]()
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