I just lost one of my cat lives! I came into my little home office and my computer screen was black! I have been told not to turn my computer off by my IT geek husband, but it was OFF - something to do with the wireless network he is having no luck getting to work effectively in this apt. So I power it back up and it comes up just long enough for me to get online and down it goes again. So I try it again and all this beeping starts. Scares the pee-willies out of me until I realize it is just the power supply we have everything plugged into. We had a power outage yesterday and the back-up battery had not been reset. Okay, my heart rate is going back to normal. Isn't it strange how we have become so dependent upon our computers? For me it is the link to outside world. I rarely pick u a phone anymore - I email most everyone.

Tonight is the Christmas Boat Parade. Can't wait to see it - everything from little dinghies to big yachts get decked out in Christmas lights and sail along the wharf in Charlotte Amalie. Parking is a nightmare in town so we are going to go down early and browse around the tourist shops for a bit before it gets dark. Jingle bells, jingle bells, ....... :-)

I was reading on YALSA-BK about Gail Giles' Shattering Glass being removed from a New York school and the ACLU getting involved. It amazes me how adults can get so upset about the very same book being used with parent and student reading groups in another area. Actually, it saddens, not amazes me, as nothing in the world of censorship amazes me anymore. I have seen too much of it. Back in the early 90s it was Judy Blume's Forever that caused the stir in the WI school district I worked in. If the HS principal had foresight as to the number of copies of the book that would be bought and read because of his removing the book from the library I am sure he would have been less likely to have done so! By the time the case concluded, with the book being put on a restricted shelf requiring a signature, I suspect every teen in the NorthCentral Wisconsin area had read the book. And, they learned a great deal about how emotional and nasty a censorship case can get, pitting community members against each other.

Forever is still being devoured by teenage girls, but I would also like to see them reading Laura Zeises Contents Under Pressure. It is more contemporary in voice as it was written this year vs 1975 for Forever. We are looking at close to a 30 year gap in time between the publication of these two books. The readership for Forever seems to be the younger teen who is still discovering her sexuality. Lucy Doyle, in Contents Under Pressure, is doing just that. She's a freshman dating a junior with sexual experience, but Lucy is smart enough to know she isn't ready for a sexual relationship, though she sure likes necking! She knows darn well her body is responding to Tobin, and it feels good, but emotionally she isn't ready for the "real deal" and is able to talk with Tobin about boundaries. I'd like to think all teenage boys would be as understanding as he is, but many are not. Let's hope this book helps girls understand that if the guy they are dating doesn't accept the boundaries she sets, he isn't worth dating anyway. The other cool part of this book is that, like in Forever, Lucy has parents that involved in their kids' lives. No missing parents in these books. :-)

That's it for me today.