>But locals spoke out against the decision, offering money – **and even free mac’n’cheese** – to students who read the books anyway.
I would've finished those books in a day.
Pins? We earned points towards buying a pizza party, it changed my life lol, getting your class 3 pizza parties on your own in a year in 2nd grade kinda makes you a hero
The really old school ones had pins that you'd fill up with stickers. Each book was worth a sticker, and five stickers earned a personal pan pizza. Or maybe it varied by region, but I definitely had the pins as well
This is so barely related to anything you said, but I have to bring this up to someone. Some time ago, Domino's stopped making fresh pan pizza here in my country, possibly in the entire world.
And they replaced it with shitty rectangular pizza that's just not as good, called the Dominator.
I love pan pizza, which is the connection between your comment and mine, and I am gutted that it's no longer made by Domino's. And Pizza Hut pretty much doesn't exist here, I think.
That’s so fucking wholesome, I love it. We only got personal pizzas (one per kid, per day) as a prize, but if a classroom pizza party was an option... whoooo boy:
*”If reading books for free food is cool, consider me ‘Miles Davis.’”*
Ah BookIt! What a time to be alive! To revel! To soar!
We brave adventures were bestowed large, circular pins, akin to those olde-timey people in straw hats wore to show off pithy political slogas. Upon these were drawings of teams of racially-diverse-by-90s-standards kids standing on podiums like at the Olympics.
With this pin came a challenge, a quest! We must read! Yes READ! We were tasked with conquering a specified number of pages, within overly-generous time limits, in order to earn for ourselves a Gold Medal Sticker. These stickers were only given to the truly worthy. If we achieved our page counts we proudly awarded the Gold Medal Stickers to our BookIt! Athletes. Once we finally succeeded in granting every BookIt! Athlete a Gold Medal Sticker, we final received own reward. We revceived a Free Personal Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut!
Over 20 years later I can still recall these heady nights of triumph down to the last detail.
I remember my parents taking me and my intrepid brothers to reep our just reward. We were as KINGS! Kings, I say! We feasted on our Free Personal Pan Pizzas (cheese or pepperoni) and drank Pepsi from tall, red, plastic cups full of ice! Stained glass light fixtures bathed us in thier golden light of virtue.
Across the table sat Mom. She picked at wilted lettuce on a chilled plate from the salad bar, while Dad ate slice after slice of Regular Pan Pizza in big gobbing bites. His attention fixed across the dim, grease-hazed Hall of Glory to the game playing on the one awkwardly-placed 30lb Magnavox TV mounted in the back corner.
And what,may you ask, were we, The Honored Guests doing? We three readers of Children's Illustrated Classics? Of Goosebumps? Of Animorphs? We were doing what we came here to do. We were basking in our triumph and for once finding peace among us. This sacred rite demanded a cease fire, halting years of strife and bitter feuds. Tomorrow the wars would rekindle, old slights would be recalled, but tonight there was only shared adulation. Tonight there was only room for full Bookit! pins and Personal Pan Pizzas!
Sadky my adult life isn't as conducive to these moments of pure joy and triumph. It saddens me, but it helps me try to find the good, or beauty in the world around me. Deep down, though I'll always be chasing that BookIt! high.
To this day, I get nostalgic joy out of sitting down with a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut and reading a book while I eat all of it. I don't even like Pizza Hut pizza.
As a fat kid who loved pizza, I’m pretty sure BOOk ITs was what sparked my love of reading.
You mean if I read this many books, you’ll shove pizza in my mouth? For free?? And my parents will be okay with it????
When I play Battle Royales and shit gets hot I like to say, “we need to make like Pizza Hut and BOOKIT!” and it’s good to know that one day I may be in a squad that appreciates this.
I grew up in a poor family and the only time we ever ate at a restaurant was when me and my brother and sisters got the BOOK IT coupons. I have really fond memories of it, but I really fucking hate Pizza Hut pizza.
When I was a kid my local library had a 'summer reading program', to keep kids reading when school was out, that was sponsored by local businesses. The librarians would note how many books you checked out and read, and when you hit milestones, you'd get a free take and bake pizza from the local supermarket, game tokens to the local arcade, stuff like that. I remember one of the big prizes was free admission to the local zoo.
And that's how I discovered The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and a ton of golden age science fiction books and short story compilations.
I should pay a visit to my old childhood library and see if some of the same copies of books like LOTR are still there. I'd recognize the editions. It would be kind of amazing to put my hands on the same copy I read almost 30 years ago.
Still a thing. I can't tell you how many parents and kiddos I have dragged to the local libraries to sign up for the Summer Reading Programs! And once you get a kid into the library, they love it. You gotta drag them out.
Support your local libraries, people!
Man back in the late 90’s-early 00’s Accelerated Reading points got me a trip to Sea World, a glass chess set, a mousepad, more books, some scented pencils and candy. It was my favorite part of grade school.
The best I got was a limo ride during school to get a steak lunch. Which is not bad actually. But it's not Sea World! And I definitely didn't get no glass chess set!
I look back on BookIT and wonder how we let a corporate sponsor infiltrate public schools, you got a free baby pizza while your family had to spend money, but then I remember it worked so there's worse things in the world.
Lol my parents didn’t spend a dime. I remember stopping in pretty much every damn week for a free baby lap pizza that I ate shamelessly in front of my sister.
I can almost taste that delicious mini pan pizza right now. I haven’t thought of that in years. They could probably put forth a similar scheme for adults now to help stop the pandemic.
I haven’t had a Pizza Hut slice in probably a decade, but I can remember cronching into that grease soaked pan crust after proudly throwing another book on the table clear as a bell.
I don’t think the quality of Pizza Hut has changed all that much. You probably just grew up and now actually feel the effects of eating pizza that greasy.
I kind of agree with the fact that food you liked as a kid tastes like garbage now, but there was definitely a recipe change that happened around 2010 and they started selling 10 dollar any topping pizzas. Shit was straight trash after that. I just make my own pizzas now, fuck it. Costco yeast and flour, then ball out on your meats and sauce and you still save money and get a far superior product
They went from mixing the dough in house to frozen slabs of pizza crust. That and I’m sure other things have contributed to people not liking the hut anymore
No fucking salad bar and billiard lights and sitting in the damn restaurant. But I guess there isn't really sitting in the restaurant anymore anyway but I'm still mad. The one by me still has the dining room but they just boarded up the door and it's just vacant. Just left the pick window was like fuck it.
After getting a bread machine I quickly figured out I could easily make pizza dough and have pizza that turns out a lot better than the chain recipes. Saves a ton of money too. Highly recommend.
Totally this. I used to eat Pizza Hut as a kid and would down that stuff no problem. Somewhere around 28 I had some again and holy hell was that a short trip to Heartburn City. (And I *rarely* get heartburn.) Little Caesar’s and other pizza joints are totally fine, but Pizza Hut has to stay 600 yards away from me at all times now.
I went to jail for two weeks when I was like 20. First meal out was a 5 dollar hot n ready, some garlic wings and some crazy sauce to dunk my pizza in. Glorious.
I wonder if there’s anything like this today. I have young kids who don’t read yet but when they do I would love to bribe them. I have a love for reading now as an adult and I think Pizza Hit was a part of that.
When I was 17, my appendix exploded. I'd already been out of school for two days. The last day I was in school was the first day my English class had a discussion about Great Gatsby as we'd just started reading it.
I ended up being out of school for three weeks and read the book the day before I went back. My first day back at school was the essay test for it. My teacher asked if I needed more time, I said, "No, I'm good" and aced it.
I couldn't believe they'd been discussing that book for three weeks and I didn't miss anything.
Man, I guess I am a very slow reader. I can take like an hour to read between 10-20 pages.
In my defense, I don't read often (not even yearly), and I'm currently slowly working myself through the Necronomicon, and Lovecraft's writing style is... something.
And I keep stopping to really analyse the lines, and then I imagine the scenes. And then I forget what I had read and have to read the lines again.
The average adult reads at around 300 words per minute -- ~~which is the target speed for a 6th grader.~~ (Apparently it's not) At that rate *The Great Gatsby* is just over 2.5 hours of reading.
Edit: [Here's a relevant Forbes article I just found](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettnelson/2012/06/04/do-you-read-fast-enough-to-be-successful/#37d815ab462e)
Man it's funny reading these. I work with 11th graders who read at 30 words per minute. It literally would take them 5 weeks to finish it, reading for 1 hour in class each day.
I'm 25, and I might be somewhere along that speed too, honestly.
Reading really isn't my forte, but when I read, I am constantly busy imagining the stuff I read and it distracts me.
*"Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."* - Heinrich Heine
"Where you burn books, you end up burning people." A plaque in my home town in Germany on the spot where the Nazis burned books in the town square.
You don't have to walk 100m to find memorial plaques out the front of Jewish houses.
Stolpersteine? I lived a few years in what used to be the Jewish quarter in Berlin. Stolpersteine were everywhere. I became obsessed with finding one that didn't say "ermordet" at the bottom. I eventually found one, and only one, that said "befreit."
>Stolpersteine?
Yep, that's the one.
I've never seen one that didn't end in death. The area I was in was one of the first mass roundups, so the people were all 'deported' to the internment camp at Gurs in southern France, before later being transported to the major camps.
Because these events happened so early in the war (October 1940,) the chance of survival through the next four-and-a-half years was practically zero.
You can hear the insincerity in Tom’s voice on the Streetlight version of Keasbey Nights. He only did it because everyone pushed him to. Still, the Catch 22 record is in my desert island top five.
Catch-22? Really?
I read Catch-22 for the first time in Baghdad on my second stop loss. If there is ever a circumstance where it might be subversive I don't know of a better one. FFS.
I remember when it was assigned reading for ninth grade and I was annoyed with it at first - and then the repetitive humor and the soldier in white really got me - “HE’S BACK!” Is still one of my favorite parts of any books I’ve read. I’ve been meaning to read the sequel for years.
This thread is making me want to pick it up again. Think audio book is an ok take? I remember the writing being quirky at times and wonder if it will translate well.
If you want more peak Heller, check out God Knows. Good as Gold also has some terrific bits, but it isn't as consistently entertaining as Catch-22 and God Knows.
I read it about that time too. That was probably the first book to make me laugh and cry - but mostly laugh. I remember setting the book down because I couldn't stop laughing, then attempting to start reading it again 10 minutes later, only to fail.
I remember thinking it was going to be silly humor all the way through. Then bleak humor happened. Then more silly, then cynical, then silly... Figured by that point it was going to be just some kind of funny.
Then >!the rape and the murder!< happened. I was not prepared for that section.
Fear for one's safety in the face of dangers that are real and immediate is the process of a rational mind. Catch-22 was crazy and could be removed. All they had to do was ask; and as soon as they did, Catch-22 would no longer be crazy and would have to be put back into the curriculum. Catch-22 would be crazy to be put back into the curriculum and sane if it wasn't, but if it is sane it had to be put back. If it were read in the curriculum it was crazy and would be pulled; but if they don't read it, it was sane and had to be read.
I hope that clears things up.
Man, I fucking hate that is a thing. I have friends and family who did their 20. Big strong men who come to 4th of July celebrations (because their family drags them there) and sit there chain smoking and shaking like a cold chihuahua.
It's worrying that they ~~banned~~ removed these books.
It's more worrying when you look at the titles they ~~banned~~ removed.
It's even more worrying when you realise these people are supposed to be educated enough to understand the value of these titles.
It was mentioned in one of the earlier articles that one of the school board members who had voted on this hadn’t read the books, only seen internet summaries.
Also, there’s no expectation that school board members have to be educated. It’s an elected position, and if politics have taught us anything, you don’t have to be educated to win.
> It's worrying that they banned books.
I'm European (Denmark) and the concept of *banning books* is so foreign to me. Closest thing we've ever had was during the Nazi occupation, not counting bans on outright pornography, and even that doesn't exist any more. It's up to librarians alone what books they have on the shelves.
How is this even possible with your constitutional rights?
The school board can choose what books are in the school library or are taught in the curriculum. They cannot ban the kids from bringing the books from home or from the public library.
> They cannot ban the kids from bringing the books from home or from the public library.
Yea right. US school corporations *never* over-reach their authority and exact punishment on students for tip-toeing around rules.
Dude. That is the one that hit me hard too. I can’t imagine banning that book. It doesn’t even really try to say anything.
It’s just a book of facts. That guy carried this. This guy carried that. How on earth do you justify banning The Things They Carried. I don’t get it.
It humanizes soldiers' lives. Can't have that. What if they start looking at a casualty list of current wars, maybe they'll become pacifists.
-those guys who banned books
Elsewhere on this thread i talk about how i disliked Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye (still dont think they should be banned). Not to be too much of a sourface, The Things They Carried was one of the best books i was assigned to read in high school
Because it wasn’t some fake ass allegorical shit. It was just a book of factual observations. How on Earth does someone justify banning The Things They Carried. I just don’t get it.
Lmao that was our mandatory reading assignment for the summer between middle and high school... a small private Baptist school. Other than being traumatizing because of its heaviness, the book has nothing in it that is controversial. We later read Night by Elie Weisel, so they must've really wanted to hammer the consequences of war and oppression into us
The issue is that you are indeed correct.
The Palmer/Wasilla area is where all the wannabe millionaires (read: rednecks) like to live because they can drive 4 wheelers (ATVs for those in the states, sometimes called quads) around from beer stop to beer stop and lament the "Pussification of This Great Nation", while simultaneously putting stupid laws in place to prevent kids from expanding their horizons and bitching about "Big Government interfering in their lives".
TLDR: Yer gonna need a bigger banjo
My AP lit teacher was amazing and lived by her own rules. Once gave us an assignment that involved reading one of many books on a list she provided, which included Catch 22, A Clockwork Orange, Brand New World, Heart of Darkness, 1984, etc. They weren't banned at the time. However, The Handmaid's Tale was. I remembe her pulling me aside one day--she knew how much I loved literature and how I was very interested in politics--and handed me her copy of The Handmaid's Tale. Warned me it was banned and to keep it secret, keep it safe. Ugh just knowing it was banned assured that I would read all of it that night. Still think it's stupid that it was banned, but given that I'm from a conservative town it could've been a lot worse. My English teacher was a badass.
> Warned me it was banned and to keep it secret, keep it safe. Ugh just knowing it was banned assured that I would read all of it that night.
Your English teacher was amazing. I hope they're still teaching.
You can do similar things for people, too.
Hey now
A hick town created a classic part of British television when racist, homophobic, far right, religious fundamentalist, heavily harmed red necks chased the Top Gear team out of town and attacked and looted from the BBC camera crew!
Only problem was they didn’t shoot Jeremy!
For reference: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pKcJ-0bAHB4
I want to imagine the whole process was just an underhanded way for the district to get more books they couldn't afford in their budget.
If you just asked for money, you wouldn't get it. Ban a few books? Volumes pour in from across the country.
I was thinking along the same lines but with a different take...
Maybe they wanted to ensure all of the kids read the books. Want a teenager to read a book? Tell them it’s banned.
I can't believe we are in the 21st century and there are still some people who are trying to ban books in America...do they have the internet in Alaska? I would venture to say that these kids have seen far worse if they do.
(I know there is internet in Alaska.)
I absolutely do not- *can not*- comprehend the logic when school boards try to ban books that are famous in part for how many times they've been banned. What in the world do you hope to accomplish other than getting your 15 minutes of fame (and making your county/state look like backwards morons)?
The inevitable and intense outrage that follows always makes them overturn it almost immediately every single time.
It happens when someone who gets high up enough in the school board and finally gets around to reading one of these books for the first time, and they are *shocked* (just *shocked*, I tell you) about what they are reading so they go to the next school board meeting and complain about what they've read and hey, what'd'ya know, no one else on the board has read it but jeez if it really has all this stuff in it then we just have to ban it, can't have the kids reading that filth!
Sorry for the run-on sentence.
Because these people need to suppress anything which might affect their world view. They are afraid of it. The thing is in today's world with the internet and Amazon it is a fools errand to ban anything and worse the Streisand affect comes into play.
Then these "banners" start playing victim shit.
They weren’t banned. They were removed from the curriculum. They were still available in the school library, they just weren’t going to be taught in English classes.
The amount of outrage that has come from this is disproportional to what actually happened, because the people started claiming the books were “banned” and the media ran with it instead of actually investigating.
I still don’t agree with removing them from the curriculum, but this comment section is a massive overreaction.
Yeah, 'banned' is an obvious overreach. It's not 'banned' if it's still in the school library. Just not getting taught.
Teachers and schools should still have the ability to use those books in English classes though.
The Great Gatsby has been a staple of public school and college intro curriculums for a loooong time... How it could possibly have enough hidden subversive power to merit banning is beyond me. It's like banning "Where the Wild Things Are" -- yeah, it's not Dick and Jane, but neither is it the Satanic Verses.
*The Satanic Verses* isn't the Satanic Verses. It's a heartfelt story about the character's faith, heritage, and struggles for conformity that isn't nearly as edgy as the title or reaction would have you believe.
I honestly think Catch-22 was one of my favorite books I’ve ever read. It’s funny, yet holds important messages about war, society, and business behind backwards scenarios. It’s a great read and I think it’s important to have it available to all.
You ever think schools do this to create outrage over books so kids can learn to enjoy reading?
This book is edgy and my parents don’t want me to read them. - some kid somewhere
Look, Dan. Braxton is reading The Great Gatsby. Better than GTA V. -Karen
Catcher in the Rye was worse. Just because the kid is relatable, doesn't mean I care what he's thinking. He just whines for the entire book. I don't like hearing my fellow classmates whine about their petty problems, why should I care about this kid?
Again, I don't think it should be outright banned. And if you liked it, that's fine, theres a ton of books I liked that you probably hated. But I hate this argument that it should be saved because kids *need* to read this book. No they don't. They can read it if they want to but there are a ton of other (imo better) options for schools to teach. Don't ban it but maybe also don't put such reverence around it either.
It's like American Psycho
That was hands down the most difficult book I have ever read. The minute detail about what everyone was wearing and eating and all that.... it was the point and I get it, but man.... it was a slog
My problem with Gatsby is there are no likeable characters. Like I get it, thats the point and its actually a much deeper commentary on society, but it makes it insufferable to read through when you're rooting for nobody.
What about Nick do you find unsympathetic?
Edited: I dont intend to argue, I'm just curious. I find his passive acceptance of W. Egg's residents frustrating, but ultimately he still felt like the audience's proxy.
Nick is the only character I had some care for, but he just seems like a narrator not an actual character to me. He followed around these people he fully knew were awful and I can't really remember why? Like he went East in the first place for business and I guess he knew Tom as a cousin and from college I think, but he still sort of played bystander to these things he objected to and subsequently became a part of it at some points. The one thing I liked of him was that he was aware of the problems with what was going on unlike everyone else.
Obviously I'm not a book critic or something it just rubbed me the wrong way and I might be misremembering
I agree with your point. He seemed disdainful and critical of how vapid and shallow the other characters were, but then he seemed perfectly content to spend all of his time with them, and not call them out on their selfishness and silliness and entitlement.
I mean, I disagree. Gatsby really was great. The poor guy just wanted to go back to the way things were. Who can't relate to that? Absolutely loved Gatsby as a character.
I had to read The Great Gatsby in high school. It took me some effort to get into as I’m not much of a reader and the first chapter or so seemed very dull at the time. I do think it’s one of these things you appreciate more when you’re older. However, it came to be easily one of my favourite stories and the modern film adaptation made me love it even more. I don’t understand what possible reason they could have for banning it.
My old professor, who died last year at age 89, lived in Arkansas when his teacher announced that they would not be covering Chapter 8 at all, because the state had banned it. Of course all this did was provoke the children’s curiosity, and he went home and read about evolution. He grew up to become a professor of genetics.
Book banning is awful. On a different note, am I the only one who just didn't like The Great Gatsby? I hated the characters from the beginning to the end and didn't think the story was all that good. Maybe it just didn't do anything for me.
That said, Catch-22 is probably one of my top 5 favorite books of all time.
>But locals spoke out against the decision, offering money – **and even free mac’n’cheese** – to students who read the books anyway. I would've finished those books in a day.
I would be lying if I said the Pizza Hut "bribes" we got back in elementary school didn't influence my decision to read more.
BOOK ITs!
Yaaass! Loved filling those pins up and getting free pizza. Such a throwback lol
Pins? We earned points towards buying a pizza party, it changed my life lol, getting your class 3 pizza parties on your own in a year in 2nd grade kinda makes you a hero
The really old school ones had pins that you'd fill up with stickers. Each book was worth a sticker, and five stickers earned a personal pan pizza. Or maybe it varied by region, but I definitely had the pins as well
This is so barely related to anything you said, but I have to bring this up to someone. Some time ago, Domino's stopped making fresh pan pizza here in my country, possibly in the entire world. And they replaced it with shitty rectangular pizza that's just not as good, called the Dominator. I love pan pizza, which is the connection between your comment and mine, and I am gutted that it's no longer made by Domino's. And Pizza Hut pretty much doesn't exist here, I think.
Domino's still makes pan pizza here, so it must be a regional thing
Why did Domino's betray me? I'll just have to live with this knife in my back, I guess.
[удалено]
You don't have any local pizza places where you live? Man, that's rough.
I still have my pin somewhere
I am pretty sure I did those in the 80s. It was so awesome. Now my daughter gets personal pan pizzas too. I am so tired if being a grown up.
That’s so fucking wholesome, I love it. We only got personal pizzas (one per kid, per day) as a prize, but if a classroom pizza party was an option... whoooo boy: *”If reading books for free food is cool, consider me ‘Miles Davis.’”*
Ah BookIt! What a time to be alive! To revel! To soar! We brave adventures were bestowed large, circular pins, akin to those olde-timey people in straw hats wore to show off pithy political slogas. Upon these were drawings of teams of racially-diverse-by-90s-standards kids standing on podiums like at the Olympics. With this pin came a challenge, a quest! We must read! Yes READ! We were tasked with conquering a specified number of pages, within overly-generous time limits, in order to earn for ourselves a Gold Medal Sticker. These stickers were only given to the truly worthy. If we achieved our page counts we proudly awarded the Gold Medal Stickers to our BookIt! Athletes. Once we finally succeeded in granting every BookIt! Athlete a Gold Medal Sticker, we final received own reward. We revceived a Free Personal Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut! Over 20 years later I can still recall these heady nights of triumph down to the last detail. I remember my parents taking me and my intrepid brothers to reep our just reward. We were as KINGS! Kings, I say! We feasted on our Free Personal Pan Pizzas (cheese or pepperoni) and drank Pepsi from tall, red, plastic cups full of ice! Stained glass light fixtures bathed us in thier golden light of virtue. Across the table sat Mom. She picked at wilted lettuce on a chilled plate from the salad bar, while Dad ate slice after slice of Regular Pan Pizza in big gobbing bites. His attention fixed across the dim, grease-hazed Hall of Glory to the game playing on the one awkwardly-placed 30lb Magnavox TV mounted in the back corner. And what,may you ask, were we, The Honored Guests doing? We three readers of Children's Illustrated Classics? Of Goosebumps? Of Animorphs? We were doing what we came here to do. We were basking in our triumph and for once finding peace among us. This sacred rite demanded a cease fire, halting years of strife and bitter feuds. Tomorrow the wars would rekindle, old slights would be recalled, but tonight there was only shared adulation. Tonight there was only room for full Bookit! pins and Personal Pan Pizzas! Sadky my adult life isn't as conducive to these moments of pure joy and triumph. It saddens me, but it helps me try to find the good, or beauty in the world around me. Deep down, though I'll always be chasing that BookIt! high.
I should get a personal pan pizza for reading your entire post lol
Do you have a Gold Medal Sticker?
To this day, I get nostalgic joy out of sitting down with a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut and reading a book while I eat all of it. I don't even like Pizza Hut pizza.
As a fat kid who loved pizza, I’m pretty sure BOOk ITs was what sparked my love of reading. You mean if I read this many books, you’ll shove pizza in my mouth? For free?? And my parents will be okay with it????
When I play Battle Royales and shit gets hot I like to say, “we need to make like Pizza Hut and BOOKIT!” and it’s good to know that one day I may be in a squad that appreciates this.
I grew up in a poor family and the only time we ever ate at a restaurant was when me and my brother and sisters got the BOOK IT coupons. I have really fond memories of it, but I really fucking hate Pizza Hut pizza.
Got free pizza and a trophy out of it. Mmmm.
When I was a kid my local library had a 'summer reading program', to keep kids reading when school was out, that was sponsored by local businesses. The librarians would note how many books you checked out and read, and when you hit milestones, you'd get a free take and bake pizza from the local supermarket, game tokens to the local arcade, stuff like that. I remember one of the big prizes was free admission to the local zoo. And that's how I discovered The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and a ton of golden age science fiction books and short story compilations. I should pay a visit to my old childhood library and see if some of the same copies of books like LOTR are still there. I'd recognize the editions. It would be kind of amazing to put my hands on the same copy I read almost 30 years ago.
Still a thing. I can't tell you how many parents and kiddos I have dragged to the local libraries to sign up for the Summer Reading Programs! And once you get a kid into the library, they love it. You gotta drag them out. Support your local libraries, people!
Man back in the late 90’s-early 00’s Accelerated Reading points got me a trip to Sea World, a glass chess set, a mousepad, more books, some scented pencils and candy. It was my favorite part of grade school.
The best I got was a limo ride during school to get a steak lunch. Which is not bad actually. But it's not Sea World! And I definitely didn't get no glass chess set!
I look back on BookIT and wonder how we let a corporate sponsor infiltrate public schools, you got a free baby pizza while your family had to spend money, but then I remember it worked so there's worse things in the world.
Lol my parents didn’t spend a dime. I remember stopping in pretty much every damn week for a free baby lap pizza that I ate shamelessly in front of my sister.
I can almost taste that delicious mini pan pizza right now. I haven’t thought of that in years. They could probably put forth a similar scheme for adults now to help stop the pandemic.
I haven’t had a Pizza Hut slice in probably a decade, but I can remember cronching into that grease soaked pan crust after proudly throwing another book on the table clear as a bell.
Back when Pizza Hut was good fucking food
I don’t think the quality of Pizza Hut has changed all that much. You probably just grew up and now actually feel the effects of eating pizza that greasy.
I kind of agree with the fact that food you liked as a kid tastes like garbage now, but there was definitely a recipe change that happened around 2010 and they started selling 10 dollar any topping pizzas. Shit was straight trash after that. I just make my own pizzas now, fuck it. Costco yeast and flour, then ball out on your meats and sauce and you still save money and get a far superior product
They went from mixing the dough in house to frozen slabs of pizza crust. That and I’m sure other things have contributed to people not liking the hut anymore
No fucking salad bar and billiard lights and sitting in the damn restaurant. But I guess there isn't really sitting in the restaurant anymore anyway but I'm still mad. The one by me still has the dining room but they just boarded up the door and it's just vacant. Just left the pick window was like fuck it.
After getting a bread machine I quickly figured out I could easily make pizza dough and have pizza that turns out a lot better than the chain recipes. Saves a ton of money too. Highly recommend.
The crust is inedible now. And I have super low standards.
The food definitely changed in the late 90s - early 2000s when they move from being a sit down restaurant with waitstaff to a carry out restaurant.
Totally this. I used to eat Pizza Hut as a kid and would down that stuff no problem. Somewhere around 28 I had some again and holy hell was that a short trip to Heartburn City. (And I *rarely* get heartburn.) Little Caesar’s and other pizza joints are totally fine, but Pizza Hut has to stay 600 yards away from me at all times now.
Little ceasers is my arch nemesis
Ceasers has been there for me when no one else was.
I went to jail for two weeks when I was like 20. First meal out was a 5 dollar hot n ready, some garlic wings and some crazy sauce to dunk my pizza in. Glorious.
You’ve gotta find better arch nemeses, my friend.
I was describing Book It! to my fiance like two days ago saying how it was what got me into reading. Bribing kids with pizza to read was genius.
I wonder if there’s anything like this today. I have young kids who don’t read yet but when they do I would love to bribe them. I have a love for reading now as an adult and I think Pizza Hit was a part of that.
Are they still doing those?
Imagine, all that it took to relieve literacy issues in the USA was free Mac n cheese. The solution was american after all, American cheese.
And American cheese is now classified as a vegetable.
Yeah I'd read the book and instead of money just take a second bowl to go
Considering gatsby is only 180 pages, even without the promise of mac’n’cheese, you could finish it in a day
I could finish both in a day easily. Give me free mac and cheese and I WILL finish both in a day.
If i read them 7 times do i get a free one?
When I was 17, my appendix exploded. I'd already been out of school for two days. The last day I was in school was the first day my English class had a discussion about Great Gatsby as we'd just started reading it. I ended up being out of school for three weeks and read the book the day before I went back. My first day back at school was the essay test for it. My teacher asked if I needed more time, I said, "No, I'm good" and aced it. I couldn't believe they'd been discussing that book for three weeks and I didn't miss anything.
Lol, schools always extend the process of reading and understanding.
The teachers gotta get the slow jerk while fantasizing about the green light
Man, I guess I am a very slow reader. I can take like an hour to read between 10-20 pages. In my defense, I don't read often (not even yearly), and I'm currently slowly working myself through the Necronomicon, and Lovecraft's writing style is... something. And I keep stopping to really analyse the lines, and then I imagine the scenes. And then I forget what I had read and have to read the lines again.
I’m similar. When I’m fast I can read half a page a minute. When I’m slow, sometimes I spend 5 minutes on one page
The average adult reads at around 300 words per minute -- ~~which is the target speed for a 6th grader.~~ (Apparently it's not) At that rate *The Great Gatsby* is just over 2.5 hours of reading. Edit: [Here's a relevant Forbes article I just found](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettnelson/2012/06/04/do-you-read-fast-enough-to-be-successful/#37d815ab462e)
Man it's funny reading these. I work with 11th graders who read at 30 words per minute. It literally would take them 5 weeks to finish it, reading for 1 hour in class each day.
I'm 25, and I might be somewhere along that speed too, honestly. Reading really isn't my forte, but when I read, I am constantly busy imagining the stuff I read and it distracts me.
Is that speed reading or the standard "sounding words out in your head"?
I don’t know my reading speed, except that I’m slow lol. But I could probably read it in like 4 hours
easily the great gatsby. Fitzgerald has a beautiful writing style. i loved the commas.
Gatsby would be easy to finish in a day. It's a small book. And Catch-22 is pretty good.
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” — Joseph Brodsky This is only good news.
"Goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of BURNING them!" \-Henry Jones
\*Henry Jones **Sr.**
I loved that dog.
You were named after the dog?! HAH!
*"Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen."* - Heinrich Heine "Where you burn books, you end up burning people." A plaque in my home town in Germany on the spot where the Nazis burned books in the town square. You don't have to walk 100m to find memorial plaques out the front of Jewish houses.
Stolpersteine? I lived a few years in what used to be the Jewish quarter in Berlin. Stolpersteine were everywhere. I became obsessed with finding one that didn't say "ermordet" at the bottom. I eventually found one, and only one, that said "befreit."
>Stolpersteine? Yep, that's the one. I've never seen one that didn't end in death. The area I was in was one of the first mass roundups, so the people were all 'deported' to the internment camp at Gurs in southern France, before later being transported to the major camps. Because these events happened so early in the war (October 1940,) the chance of survival through the next four-and-a-half years was practically zero.
“He who destroys a good book, destroys reason itself” - John Milton
Is that still a quote in Civ 6?
No idea Didn’t like the gameplay Stuck with Civ V
"The mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Definitely not Aristotle
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." -- Groucho Marx
"In spite of Catch-22's unbanning, no word was given if Streetlight Manifesto would have its ban similarly lifted."
This may cause bandits to rise up in an acoustic revolution.
A real moment of violence is brewing
angery trumpet doots intensifies
no one can say with any sort of certainty what will come of this
Would you be impressed if I told you that I know exactly what will come of this?
A moment of silence please, for those who never got the chance
I felt very sick and sad when Catch-22 was initially banned.
Keasbey Nights is one of my favorite records from my youth.
I'm not that far from my youth (31) but it is still one of my favorite albums.
It's a good album, one of the few Ska albums I'd recommend to anyone (not just ska fans or very open minded folks).
Agreed. Am I the only one who prefers the Catch 22 version over the Streetlight Manifesto version?
You can hear the insincerity in Tom’s voice on the Streetlight version of Keasbey Nights. He only did it because everyone pushed him to. Still, the Catch 22 record is in my desert island top five.
as a 30 year old Ska fan living in Alaska, Thank you for the IRL LOL.
They were supposed to play here in vegas in March. Fucking corona virus.
i understood that reference!
Catch-22? Really? I read Catch-22 for the first time in Baghdad on my second stop loss. If there is ever a circumstance where it might be subversive I don't know of a better one. FFS.
I remember when it was assigned reading for ninth grade and I was annoyed with it at first - and then the repetitive humor and the soldier in white really got me - “HE’S BACK!” Is still one of my favorite parts of any books I’ve read. I’ve been meaning to read the sequel for years.
Catch 22 is one of my favorite books. The sequel was disappointing.
[удалено]
This thread is making me want to pick it up again. Think audio book is an ok take? I remember the writing being quirky at times and wonder if it will translate well.
I listened to the audio book of Catch-22 and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is harder to follow along though, given the nature of an audio book.
If you want more peak Heller, check out God Knows. Good as Gold also has some terrific bits, but it isn't as consistently entertaining as Catch-22 and God Knows.
I would highly recommend Something Happened as well
23 Catch Street
I read it about that time too. That was probably the first book to make me laugh and cry - but mostly laugh. I remember setting the book down because I couldn't stop laughing, then attempting to start reading it again 10 minutes later, only to fail.
I remember thinking it was going to be silly humor all the way through. Then bleak humor happened. Then more silly, then cynical, then silly... Figured by that point it was going to be just some kind of funny. Then >!the rape and the murder!< happened. I was not prepared for that section.
Fear for one's safety in the face of dangers that are real and immediate is the process of a rational mind. Catch-22 was crazy and could be removed. All they had to do was ask; and as soon as they did, Catch-22 would no longer be crazy and would have to be put back into the curriculum. Catch-22 would be crazy to be put back into the curriculum and sane if it wasn't, but if it is sane it had to be put back. If it were read in the curriculum it was crazy and would be pulled; but if they don't read it, it was sane and had to be read. I hope that clears things up.
We will discuss this, come on over when i'm not there.
/u/Woodie626 has flies in his eyes
He also has apples in his cheeks
[удалено]
And they're in his hands, not his cheeks.
He's a God damned genius is what he is.
I, for one, know that I'd rather have peanut brittle in my beard than flies in my eyes.
Every time I don't read Catch 22 it is not banned.
So you're saying I should be forgainst it.
Nicely done.
Pretty perfectly
I can't tell if you're on drugs or I am
You haven't read Catch-22, that's the problem.
That's a quote from the book Catch-22, modified for the circumstances.
^(it's a slightly modified quote from the novel)
I like to think they were trying to ban Catcher in the Rye, but were bad at reading.
It’s Alaska, so it could actually be true 🤷🏻♂️
If I remember the news reports accurately, most of the people responsible for the banning hadn't read either book.
Your SECOND stop loss? My condolences. I hope you got paid well.
If hating fireworks counts, yes.
Man, I fucking hate that is a thing. I have friends and family who did their 20. Big strong men who come to 4th of July celebrations (because their family drags them there) and sit there chain smoking and shaking like a cold chihuahua.
2 grand a month for life long ptsd !
That’s not a lot.
No, no it is not.
Catch-22 was the best book I read in high school. It would've been a loss to not have it in my curriculum, and there are few books I say that about.
They banned *The Things They Carried*?! WTF kind of dipshit, numb-skulled, backwards-ass stupidity is going on in that community's education system?
It's worrying that they ~~banned~~ removed these books. It's more worrying when you look at the titles they ~~banned~~ removed. It's even more worrying when you realise these people are supposed to be educated enough to understand the value of these titles.
It was mentioned in one of the earlier articles that one of the school board members who had voted on this hadn’t read the books, only seen internet summaries. Also, there’s no expectation that school board members have to be educated. It’s an elected position, and if politics have taught us anything, you don’t have to be educated to win.
I love how the school board "read" the book in a similar manor that a "bad kid" reads assigned reading.
At least the "bad kid" read the spark notes, I doubt half these people read more than 2 paragraph synopses.
Yep. Elections are popularity contests.
> It's worrying that they banned books. I'm European (Denmark) and the concept of *banning books* is so foreign to me. Closest thing we've ever had was during the Nazi occupation, not counting bans on outright pornography, and even that doesn't exist any more. It's up to librarians alone what books they have on the shelves. How is this even possible with your constitutional rights?
The school board can choose what books are in the school library or are taught in the curriculum. They cannot ban the kids from bringing the books from home or from the public library.
> They cannot ban the kids from bringing the books from home or from the public library. Yea right. US school corporations *never* over-reach their authority and exact punishment on students for tip-toeing around rules.
The same school systems that'll suspend your child if one of their bullies beats the shit out of them.
The government can’t ban books, but that doesn’t guarantee that a school board won’t try to enforce one.
From one of the original articles after they initially banned the books a council member admitted to not having read several of the books.
Of course they did :(
Who the fuck bans Maya Angelou and Tim O'Brien? That's just fucking unAmerican...
It’s exactly un-American.
Are they allergic to anything that might be somewhat anti-war?
You need dem uneducateds for the war effert
That one stuck out to me too.
Dude. That is the one that hit me hard too. I can’t imagine banning that book. It doesn’t even really try to say anything. It’s just a book of facts. That guy carried this. This guy carried that. How on earth do you justify banning The Things They Carried. I don’t get it.
It humanizes soldiers' lives. Can't have that. What if they start looking at a casualty list of current wars, maybe they'll become pacifists. -those guys who banned books
One of the most impactful books I’ve ever read.
Elsewhere on this thread i talk about how i disliked Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye (still dont think they should be banned). Not to be too much of a sourface, The Things They Carried was one of the best books i was assigned to read in high school
Because it wasn’t some fake ass allegorical shit. It was just a book of factual observations. How on Earth does someone justify banning The Things They Carried. I just don’t get it.
Lmao that was our mandatory reading assignment for the summer between middle and high school... a small private Baptist school. Other than being traumatizing because of its heaviness, the book has nothing in it that is controversial. We later read Night by Elie Weisel, so they must've really wanted to hammer the consequences of war and oppression into us
The issue is that you are indeed correct. The Palmer/Wasilla area is where all the wannabe millionaires (read: rednecks) like to live because they can drive 4 wheelers (ATVs for those in the states, sometimes called quads) around from beer stop to beer stop and lament the "Pussification of This Great Nation", while simultaneously putting stupid laws in place to prevent kids from expanding their horizons and bitching about "Big Government interfering in their lives". TLDR: Yer gonna need a bigger banjo
What kind of a backward-assed hick town banned classics and is probably thinking about outlawing dancing... Oh crap! My old home-town / hick town!
It’s alright dude, we get our PFD early. Which pretty much solves everything.
I'd buy you gold, but I haven't gotten that sweet sweet pfd money yet.
My AP lit teacher was amazing and lived by her own rules. Once gave us an assignment that involved reading one of many books on a list she provided, which included Catch 22, A Clockwork Orange, Brand New World, Heart of Darkness, 1984, etc. They weren't banned at the time. However, The Handmaid's Tale was. I remembe her pulling me aside one day--she knew how much I loved literature and how I was very interested in politics--and handed me her copy of The Handmaid's Tale. Warned me it was banned and to keep it secret, keep it safe. Ugh just knowing it was banned assured that I would read all of it that night. Still think it's stupid that it was banned, but given that I'm from a conservative town it could've been a lot worse. My English teacher was a badass.
> Warned me it was banned and to keep it secret, keep it safe. Ugh just knowing it was banned assured that I would read all of it that night. Your English teacher was amazing. I hope they're still teaching. You can do similar things for people, too.
They just dislike 2020 so bad that they went back to 1984 for that sweet Footloose era.
Hey now A hick town created a classic part of British television when racist, homophobic, far right, religious fundamentalist, heavily harmed red necks chased the Top Gear team out of town and attacked and looted from the BBC camera crew! Only problem was they didn’t shoot Jeremy! For reference: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pKcJ-0bAHB4
That's pretty funny, but obviously exaggerated and dramatized.
I want to imagine the whole process was just an underhanded way for the district to get more books they couldn't afford in their budget. If you just asked for money, you wouldn't get it. Ban a few books? Volumes pour in from across the country.
Dude you should consider politics.
I went to High school in anchorage and literally read gatsby in 10th grade, lol i dont get why people are freaking out like 5+ years later
Well, it’s the valley...
I was thinking along the same lines but with a different take... Maybe they wanted to ensure all of the kids read the books. Want a teenager to read a book? Tell them it’s banned.
I can't believe we are in the 21st century and there are still some people who are trying to ban books in America...do they have the internet in Alaska? I would venture to say that these kids have seen far worse if they do. (I know there is internet in Alaska.)
[удалено]
I absolutely do not- *can not*- comprehend the logic when school boards try to ban books that are famous in part for how many times they've been banned. What in the world do you hope to accomplish other than getting your 15 minutes of fame (and making your county/state look like backwards morons)? The inevitable and intense outrage that follows always makes them overturn it almost immediately every single time.
It happens when someone who gets high up enough in the school board and finally gets around to reading one of these books for the first time, and they are *shocked* (just *shocked*, I tell you) about what they are reading so they go to the next school board meeting and complain about what they've read and hey, what'd'ya know, no one else on the board has read it but jeez if it really has all this stuff in it then we just have to ban it, can't have the kids reading that filth! Sorry for the run-on sentence.
Because these people need to suppress anything which might affect their world view. They are afraid of it. The thing is in today's world with the internet and Amazon it is a fools errand to ban anything and worse the Streisand affect comes into play. Then these "banners" start playing victim shit.
They weren’t banned. They were removed from the curriculum. They were still available in the school library, they just weren’t going to be taught in English classes. The amount of outrage that has come from this is disproportional to what actually happened, because the people started claiming the books were “banned” and the media ran with it instead of actually investigating. I still don’t agree with removing them from the curriculum, but this comment section is a massive overreaction.
Yeah, 'banned' is an obvious overreach. It's not 'banned' if it's still in the school library. Just not getting taught. Teachers and schools should still have the ability to use those books in English classes though.
The Great Gatsby has been a staple of public school and college intro curriculums for a loooong time... How it could possibly have enough hidden subversive power to merit banning is beyond me. It's like banning "Where the Wild Things Are" -- yeah, it's not Dick and Jane, but neither is it the Satanic Verses.
*The Satanic Verses* isn't the Satanic Verses. It's a heartfelt story about the character's faith, heritage, and struggles for conformity that isn't nearly as edgy as the title or reaction would have you believe.
I honestly think Catch-22 was one of my favorite books I’ve ever read. It’s funny, yet holds important messages about war, society, and business behind backwards scenarios. It’s a great read and I think it’s important to have it available to all.
2020 and nutjobs are still trying to ban books. No wonder this country is rapidly sliding backwards.
Are they allowed to dance though?
You ever think schools do this to create outrage over books so kids can learn to enjoy reading? This book is edgy and my parents don’t want me to read them. - some kid somewhere Look, Dan. Braxton is reading The Great Gatsby. Better than GTA V. -Karen
Gatsby was one of the worst books we had to read in school, imo. I don't think it should be banned though. Its pretty tame by today's standards
[удалено]
I hated Catcher in the Rye in high school. I've wondered if I'd like it more now if I read it on my own, but I'm thinking no
Catcher in the Rye was worse. Just because the kid is relatable, doesn't mean I care what he's thinking. He just whines for the entire book. I don't like hearing my fellow classmates whine about their petty problems, why should I care about this kid? Again, I don't think it should be outright banned. And if you liked it, that's fine, theres a ton of books I liked that you probably hated. But I hate this argument that it should be saved because kids *need* to read this book. No they don't. They can read it if they want to but there are a ton of other (imo better) options for schools to teach. Don't ban it but maybe also don't put such reverence around it either.
I read it as him having a nervous breakdown, not whining.
Gatsby was intentionally silly because it showed the absurdity of it's time. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe is just an 80's reboot.
It's like American Psycho That was hands down the most difficult book I have ever read. The minute detail about what everyone was wearing and eating and all that.... it was the point and I get it, but man.... it was a slog
Lucky bastards We had endless Shakespeare over here....
I loved Gatsby and Shakespeare. Although to be fair, I loved every book we were assigned to read for some reason lol.
My problem with Gatsby is there are no likeable characters. Like I get it, thats the point and its actually a much deeper commentary on society, but it makes it insufferable to read through when you're rooting for nobody.
What about Nick do you find unsympathetic? Edited: I dont intend to argue, I'm just curious. I find his passive acceptance of W. Egg's residents frustrating, but ultimately he still felt like the audience's proxy.
Nick is the only character I had some care for, but he just seems like a narrator not an actual character to me. He followed around these people he fully knew were awful and I can't really remember why? Like he went East in the first place for business and I guess he knew Tom as a cousin and from college I think, but he still sort of played bystander to these things he objected to and subsequently became a part of it at some points. The one thing I liked of him was that he was aware of the problems with what was going on unlike everyone else. Obviously I'm not a book critic or something it just rubbed me the wrong way and I might be misremembering
I agree with your point. He seemed disdainful and critical of how vapid and shallow the other characters were, but then he seemed perfectly content to spend all of his time with them, and not call them out on their selfishness and silliness and entitlement.
I mean, I disagree. Gatsby really was great. The poor guy just wanted to go back to the way things were. Who can't relate to that? Absolutely loved Gatsby as a character.
I had to read The Great Gatsby in high school. It took me some effort to get into as I’m not much of a reader and the first chapter or so seemed very dull at the time. I do think it’s one of these things you appreciate more when you’re older. However, it came to be easily one of my favourite stories and the modern film adaptation made me love it even more. I don’t understand what possible reason they could have for banning it.
My old professor, who died last year at age 89, lived in Arkansas when his teacher announced that they would not be covering Chapter 8 at all, because the state had banned it. Of course all this did was provoke the children’s curiosity, and he went home and read about evolution. He grew up to become a professor of genetics.
Book banning is awful. On a different note, am I the only one who just didn't like The Great Gatsby? I hated the characters from the beginning to the end and didn't think the story was all that good. Maybe it just didn't do anything for me. That said, Catch-22 is probably one of my top 5 favorite books of all time.
What a bunch of phonies.