Lawrence Hall HSG
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                                       Book Removal Training

                   The orange flames waved at the crowd as paper and
                   print dissolved inside them. Burning words were torn
                   from their sentences.

                                       -The Book Thief, p. 112

And now burning words must be torn from free people
For if people read they might think about things:
Why does the Party’s Jesus hate everyone
And why are weapons superior to ideas?

Can a hangperson’s noose teach us to love
Burning crosses comfort a frightened child
Why do the cult’s censors fly our flag upside down
While stealing books from our children’s hands?

A state that trains people to purge library books
Is a slave state



Florida revises school library book removal training after public outcry
Story by Douglas Soule, USA TODAY NETWORK

Florida revises school library book removal training after public outcry (msn.com)

It was a graveyard and overcast sky
and I sat with book and accordian in hand,
hearing the world with its screams
swallow up around me.
The people whom I had loved and lost,
Papa with his silver eyes
Mama her sharp tongue and tough love
Rudy whose hair the colour of lemons
and questioned why, the living and dead,
worlds apart, yet both did not have a choice.
I stood and screamed so that everything shook
the burning rubble and ash and dust
willing my words to bring it all back
but it did not come, and my breath rose in gasps.
Death had looked me in the eye and said,
“It’s not time yet.”
I would shut my eyes to the world
only decades later.
I will understand that there was hate and pain
there was sadness
but even more so, there was love and joy.
I will know that the people I loved had reason
to kiss goodbye
whether it was their own hurt
or saw it as a necessity,
but they were never truly gone from me
always somewhere nearby,
in the thick and thin
frail and worn
of times.
I would learn
to forgive Death that day.
I will understand that
and I will be hurt,
but I will be okay.

~

Not all deaths are sad.
Some, meant to ease their own pain,
Are called freedom.
While some,
Meant to ease the pain of others,
Are called love.

© BT

Hans Hubermann,
you had to love the man. (pg. 342)

he has soft, gentle eyes,
the color of melting silver, metallic. (pg. 34, 36)
a tired smile to match, (pg. 64)
but had a roaring laugh. (pg. 67)

his face wondered and traveled,
but disclosed no answers. (pg. 71)

always defends and protects,
even when angry or upset. (pg. 244)
his voice quiet and calm. (pg. 498)

escaped two deaths (pg. 34)
before dying in his sleep. (pg. 498)

kind, yet stupid
makes him an idiot,
but he's only a man. (pg. 204)

he never failed her. (pg. 493)
he was always there (pg. 34)
at least by midscream. (pg. 36)
he always knew what to say. (pg. 65)
"shh, it's alright. I'm here." (pg. 36, 37)