SEVEN…that’s the number of women who have disclosed to me their story of sexual assault/abuse in the last few weeks. No, I don’t work in the medical or legal field. I don’t…
Category: Books
LETTER TO EDITOR: Book Banning in Tillamook
As a writer and long-time high school English teacher, I find myself deeply troubled by the Tillamook School Board’s decision to ban the lovely novel “How The Garcia Girls Lost their Accents”…
Request for reversal of Tillamook School Board’s decision to remove How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez from high school curriculum
EDITOR’S NOTE: Over 50 local, Tillamook County community members signed a request to the TSD#9 School Board to reverse the book ban. Local people continue to be added to the list ……
Tillamook School District Ignores Requests to Reverse Book Ban from Parents, Community Members
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Tillamook School District #9 School Board meeting is Monday September 9th at 5:30pm. There is NOT an agenda item about reversing the ban on “How the Garcia Girls Lost…
Request for Reversal of Tillamook School Board Decision to Remove Book
I do not currently have children or grandchildren in the Tillamook School District, but I pay taxes in this district, and I care deeply about the quality of education the students TSD…
Local Organizations Against Book Bans: Neah-Kah-Nie Coast Art & Music Cultural Foundation – Banning Books Threat to Free Expression and Public Access to Information
EDITOR’S NOTE: Neah-Kah-Nie Coast Art & Music Cultural Foundation (NCAM) is a newly formed 501c3 non-profit supporting all forms of art based in Rockaway Beach, serving the Neah-Kah-Nie Coast, and creating scholarships…
BOOK REVIEW: The Anxious Generation – How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
By Jim Heffernan While we were talking about the current censorship at Tillamook High School, Laura recommended the book, “The Coddling of the American Mind”. I saw that the same author had…
BOOK REVIEW: The Truths We Hold – An American Journey by Kamala Harris
By Jim Heffernan The Los Angeles called this book, “A life story that genuinely entrances.” They were certainly right about that. This book grabbed me from the beginning and held my attention…
BOOK REVIEW: The Lies of the Land – Seeing Rural America for What It Is—and Isn’t (2023) by Steven Conn
By Neal Lemery A “piercing, unsentimental” history that boldly challenges the idea of a rural American crisis. (The New Yorker) One of the popular concepts about current American politics and culture is…
Questioning the Need for Explicit Content in Required Reading
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez is a novel that tells the story of the García family, who flee the Dominican Republic for the United States in the…