The Stacks
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Book of the Week: The Melting Queen by Bruce Cinnamon
This week’s Book of the Week is not quite as recent but it’s a good one well worth sharing…
Bread and representation
Back on October 15, we had a book launch up at the local indie bookstore where our Head Alien hangs one of his many hats on the regular. He arrived to have a fellow bookseller exclaim “Hey! Did you know you’re in the book?”
No, no he did not…
Canadian Born Chinese
Today we’re taking a bit of a deeper dive into one graphic novel in particular. And to the surprise of no one who’s been reading our recent posts about our Comic as Object Project or Drawn Together, this will be doing double duty as an assignment for our Head Alien’s LIS 518 course at the University of Alberta School of Library and Information Studies.
As some of you might have already guessed from the title of this post, the graphic novel in question is American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang…
Drawn Together, Judged Together
Today’s assignment? To investigate “a graphic novel or comic that has been challenged recently in western society.”
Our choice? Well, it’s the 2019 winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Best Picture Book, among other accolades…
Book News: A push for free textbooks
For this week’s addition to the library school book news project we’re stepping a bit outside the usual trade book publishing focus here at The Butterflies & Aliens Library. But in the big business that is publishing, textbook publishing is the biggest. So as a bibliophile and a student, any push to make textbooks free is going to get my attention…
Book News: Sensitivity Readers in Publishing
For this week’s contribution to the library school book news project, I wanted to share a CBC article exploring the rise of “sensitivity readers” in publishing. It relates to many of the topics that have come up in the course, including representation and diversity in publishing, the fine line between editing and self-censorship, and the not-so-fine and much muddier line between censorship versus serving your audience… which may or may not be the same as catering to the market…
Moonshots: Indigenous Comics, Indigenous Voices
On the occasion of the very first Canadian National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, we here at the Butterflies & Aliens Library wondered what we could do to mark this important moment in history.
On the one hand, there is a lot of heavy but important reading and learning to be done. But the thing is, the whole point of the Butterflies & Aliens Library is that books allow us to learn about our fellow humans and the worlds that we all live in.
So in that spirit and in the spirit of reconciliation, we thought we would start by sharing three graphic novels from our collection that we love, that also happen to contain an absolute wealth of stories from Indigenous voices: Moonshot, Volumes 1, 2, and 3.
Banned Books Week 2021
Banned Books Week is an annual celebration of the freedom to read.
Although it is a more US-based event, we here at the Butterflies & Aliens Library are happy to signal boost and use this week as another opportunity to shout out some items bookish and book-adjacent.
Small Press Saturday: House of Anansi Press
After another stressful week in the world, I’m planning on a weekend of news avoidance and indulging in nothing but books. And a great way to start this bookish weekend of mine is to introduce you to another small press!
While they are no longer super small, they are a lot smaller than Penguin Random House or Harper Collins – so say ‘Hello!’ to House of Anansi Press!
International Day of Sign Languages
Proclaimed by the UN General Assembly “in order to raise awareness of the importance of sign language in the full realization of the human rights of people who are deaf,” the International Day of Sign Languages was declared in part to recognize that “early access to sign language and services in sign language, including quality education available in sign language, is vital to the growth and development of the deaf individual and critical to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals.”
Small Press Saturday: Book*hug Press
Straight up, it has been a hell of a week. My avoidance techniques have included cooking, listening to audiobooks, working, and writing a couple of things for the Butterflies & Aliens Library. Talking about all things bookish is a welcome escape.
This Saturday, I am thrilled to introduce you to Book*hug Press.
Small Press Saturday: Conundrum Press
Happy Saturday!
This week we are heading out to Eastern Canada to meet a small press that has been around since 1996 and has evolved into a well-respected publisher of literary graphic novels – I am happy to introduce you to Conundrum Press!
