Get busy readin', or get busy tryin'

I've got books on the brain today. For two entirely different reasons.
The first is more pleasant, so we'll have a go at that to start, shall we?
At work Sunday night, I stumbled across a piece of copy that made mention of the fact that today, Monday, April 23, marks "World Book Night." This is an international initiative created to promote the love of books and reading, something I'm always happy to throw my considerable weight behind. With this event, book "givers" are tapped to reach out to those who have little or no access to books, or simply those who are infrequent readers.
The book givers have designated sites -- my home base of Lancaster County, Pa. has three: Mount Joy's Milanof-Schock Library, New Holland's Elanco Library and Lititz's Aaron's Books -- where they go to receive 20 copies of a book of their choice. There was a list of 30 titles to choose from this year, including Maya Angelou's divine "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," John Irving's compelling "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and Suzanne Collins' can't-put-it-down book of the moment "The Hunger Games." Also represented were sci-fi/fantasy (Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game"), horror (Stephen King's "The Stand") and sports (H.G. Bissinger's "Friday Night Lights"). The givers then disperse into their communities, to places from nursing homes or hospitals to mass transit or malls, and disperse the books.
They have to rely on their own sense of salesmanship, as it were, to hook people.
Good luck to all who are participating. It's too late to join the giver brigade for this year, but I'd wager the folks behind this event are already planning for the future. For more information, visit www.us.worldbooknight.org, or perhaps visit your local library system's home on the Web.
Now for the second item. A colleague of mine, reporter Tom Knapp, had posted on his Facebook page Sunday a link that had me shaking my head.
It seems that the school board in a district in nearby Lebanon County voted unanimously to pull a title from its children's shelves. The book in question is called "The Dirty Cowboy," a picture book written by Amy Timberlake and illustrated by Adam Rex.
And it seems to me that the only thing dirty about this character is, well, the accumulated grime on his person.
The story involves a cowboy who decides it's time to take his yearly bath. He has his dog keep watch over his clothes while he's scrubbing up. The problem is, when Our Hero emerges from the H20 all squeaky clean, pupster doesn't recognize his master's stench, and won't let him near the duds. And while hilarity ensues as he attempts to re-cover his assets, full-frontal cowboy definitely does not. Apparently there's not even the slightest slip of a butt crack.
The problem is, some parents complained to the board that the mere suggestion of nudity was more than enough, and requested that their children not, ahem, be exposed.
This is the original reporting on the story, from the Lebanon Daily News: http://www.ldnews.com/ci_20436349/c-board-votes-remove-dirty-cowboy-book-from?source=most_viewed
And here's the blog post from Rogue Librarian that m'colleague Tom had linked. It raises, shall we say, a point of view that's an alternative to the board's: http://sullywriter.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/wtf-is-wrong-with-these-people/
Honestly, I just don't get why this book should be seen as something even remotely risqué or inappropriate. It's a story about bath time, plain and simple. Do the parents in question bathe their kids fully clothed? I'd think they'd be congratulating the poor nekkid cowdude for at least attempting to preserve his modesty by hiding behind well-placed birds, boulders and boots.
Guess not.
I suppose I should end this morning's literary meanderings by telling you what's been on my own library shelf recently.
I just went through Steven King's latest, "11/22/63," admittedly a bit more quickly than I'd have liked, but you know how the library gets when you keep their stuff too long. Anyway, it's a big bite of book, but it's really quite savory. It's not a typical SK frightfest, and instead delves into alternate realities. I quite enjoyed it, and wouldn't mind having another, slower pass through it.
"The Hunger Games" is on my to-do shelf (I've blitzed through the first 28 pages and found them most intriguing), as is Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle."
And in my iBooks stash, I've been reading Wendy McClure's "Don't Trade the Baby for a Horse," a stash of shorts that serves as an addendum of sorts to her fun "The Wilder Life," a chronicle of her attempts to get in touch with her inner Laura Ingalls Wilder. If you're a "Little House" fan, these are must-reads, as is McClure's Twitter feed, @HalfPintIngalls. (Recent tweets: "I'm visiting @RoseWilderLane in San Francisco and the food here is INCREDIBLE! I'm wearing my 'eating corset,' that's for sure..." or "You call that train wreck on your head a BONNET? Happy Easter anyway!")