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August 13, 2021
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 | 'The Lorax' Warned Us 50 Years Ago Call it fate or an unfortunate coincidence that Dr. Seuss' The Lorax celebrates its 50th anniversary the same week the United Nations releases an urgent report on the dire consequences of human-induced climate change. The conflict between the industrious, polluting Once-ler and the feisty Lorax, who "speaks for the trees," feels more prescient than ever. Geisel began writing The Lorax at a time of growing concern about the environment. Images of an oil-slicked river in Cleveland catching fire in 1969, the first Earth Day in 1970 and other events helped build the movement and put it front and center. According to Geisel biographer Donald Pease, the author believed in the movement but didn't care for its rhetoric. He thought it was "preachy and bossy," says Pease. Geisel was also furious about construction going on in his La Jolla, Calif., neighborhood. "They were destroying quite beautiful eucalyptus trees, and he wanted to do something about this, and he had to find a way to transform what he understood to be a propaganda-oriented perspective on these matters into a fable that even children could understand. Learn more and check out these titles |
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 | Books on the Air An overview of talked-about books and authors. This weekly update, published every Friday, provides descriptions of recent TV and radio appearances by authors and their recently released books. See the hot titles from the media this week. |
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 | Leila Slimani Leila Slimani is the bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny, one of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year, and Adèle, for which she won the La Mamounia Prize. A journalist and frequent commentator on women's and human rights, she spearheaded a campaign-for which she won the Simone de Beauvoir Prize for women's freedom-to help Moroccan women speak out, as self-declared outlaws, against their country's “unfair and obsolete laws.” She is French president Emmanuel Macron's personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture and was ranked #2 on Vanity Fair France's annual list of The Fifty Most Influential French People in the World. Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1981, she now lives in Paris with her French husband and their two young children. Check out her books here. |
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 | Library Reads Library Reads-The top ten books published this month that library staff across the country love, with additional hall of fame authors. Check them out here |
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| "Once-ler!" he cried with a cruffulous croak. "Once-ler! You're making such smogulous smoke! My poor Swomee-Swans...why, they can't sing a note! No one can sing who has smog in his throat.-Dr. Seuss
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