Author and cartoonist Art Spiegelman is familiar with the hysteria surrounding certain library books. In today's episode, he tells NPR's Scott Simon about how comic book burnings during his childhood in the 1950s weren't all that different from book bans taking place across the country today. Spiegelman says that though they tackled difficult subjects, he found then – and continues to find today – great emotional power in comics, such as his reissued collection Breakdowns. And he says he's felt deeply unsettled by the ongoing challenges against these kinds of books.
Just one week after President Abraham Lincoln was re-elected in November 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman set out to execute one of the most audacious plans of the US Civil War.
His plan involved violating several central tenants of warfare which had been established for thousands of years, yet in the process, he helped bring the war to a swift conclusion.
In hindsight, many people consider what he did to have been a war crime.
Learn more about Sherman’s March to the Sea and how it affected the outcome of the US Civil War on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Author George M. Johnson says they knew their memoir, All Boys Aren't Blue, would be challenged by school boards – but they didn't realize just how much controversy it would stir up. The memoir explores Johnson's upbringing as a queer young person of color in New Jersey and Virginia. In today's episode, they tell NPR's Leila Fadel that despite all the pushback the book has received, it's been overwhelmingly gratifying to see how much it's helped teachers, librarians, parents...and especially the students themselves.
On December 21, 1891, a physical education teacher in Springfield, Massachusetts, looking to keep athletes occupied during the winter, hung some peach baskets on the balcony of the gymnasium.
With these peach baskets and an old soccer ball, he created something that revolutionized sports and became one of the most popular games in the world.
Learn more about the history of basketball and how it became a global phenomenon on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Jordan Banks, the protagonist of New Kid, is a seventh grade student who loves to draw and hopes to one day become a cartoonist. But the graphic novel following Jordan's arrival at a predominantly white, elite, private school has been challenged numerous times in the state of Texas by people claiming it promotes critical race theory. In today's episode, author Jerry Craft tells NPR's A Martinez how those challenges were often presented by parents who had not truly engaged with the material – and why it's crucial for him to tell coming-of-age stories for Black kids that don't involve catastrophe.
This episode was originally released in August 2016
Note
* Here’s a link to watch an excerpt of the CBS news break.
* One of my favorite things I came across while reading up on the lottery was this site, which includes a remarkable page where folks send in their personal stories of their draft experience.
Music
* Elevator Song by Keaton Henson (feat. Ren Ford)
* Waves by Abby Gundersen
Professor Ashley Hope Pérez's book Out of Darkness explores school segregation in 20th century Texas through a fictional love story between a young African-American boy and a Mexican-American girl. But the YA novel has been banned in a number of places and effectively pulled out of several school libraries. In today's episode, the author tells NPR's Rob Schmitz how sexual content is used as a scapegoat to target books addressing race, gender and other identity-based topics – and how those battles ultimately set back strides in diversifying children's literature.
During World War II, allied soldiers would often spend their time listening to the radio. They could, at least for a little while, be transported back home by listening to popular music with the soothing sounds of a female radio host with a flawless American accent.
Along with the music, the troops would also get a healthy dose of enemy propaganda.
Learn more about Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally, how they got stuck doing radio, and what happened to them after the war, on this Episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
