Yerrrrr! Hello Bookish Friends! Welcome to the Lauren's Library side of The Booky Babe blog. Here in this neck of the woods, I give you a quick run down of what each episode of the podcast is about. You can check out the actual podcast wherever you stream podcasts. I usually leave the links to Spotify, Apple, and Google here in the post because those are my most popular ones.
Eventually we will migrate over to youtube, but full disclosure, I be looking A MESS recording these episodes. So until I can get that part together, ya'll won't be seeing me. 😂
If you are an author, preferably an author of color, and you want your stories read on the podcast please email me at thebookybabeblog@gmail.com but make sure you keep the stories short and sweet. Preferably not full of smut. It gives me the ick and I really don't want to be on the air talking about c*cks and what not. Please don't do that to me. I beg of you. Spare my innocent eyeholes.
On episode 4 we talked about Booktok Life Hacks, Book Bans, and I read a silly story I wrote called Door Dash Dates. I am super happy that we are on episode 4! This is wild behavior. You guys are actually coming back more than once to hear me blab about nerdy book stuff. What is life? The middle school aged version of me is absolutely delighted at this.
No matter what it is, there will be someone somewhere that tries to take advantage. Books are no different. About a year ago in the spring of 2022, there was a viral tik tok video going around that gave people tips on how to return ebooks on Amazon after reading them. As long as you do it within 7 days of the purchase.
The original intent of this "hack" was to give people the chance to return a book they didn't mean to purchase. Maybe your snot nosed child was on your tablet or phone pressing buttons and accidentally purchased $500 worth of books. Or maybe you bought a book that you thought was something different. The 7 day return policy made it so that you could get your money back and keep it pushing.
But alas, there is always someone that is going to take advantage of something. This is why we can't have nice things. When this function is utilized, the customer gets their money back, but then the author has to pay to have their book restocked. At a quick glance, Amazon is not hurting for the money so reading a book and returning it for your coins back shouldn't be an issue, right? Well...unfortunately you are actually taking from the author's pocket when you do this. And if enough people do it, the author will end up having to PAY Amazon at the end of the month instead of getting earnings and that's not cool at all. Authors have mouths to feed as well.
A petition was eventually signed, and Amazon went back to look at their return policy. They did not specify, however, if there would be any consequences for people who abuse the system. At least some authors can rest assured knowing that people will no longer be able to read and return their book within the week.
Funny story before we get into discussing Books Bans, my mom was lowkey my government system growing up. She decided what books I was allowed to read and what books I was not allowed to read. Whenever we went to Walmart or Barnes and Nobles, I would go look at the books and after a few minutes I'd have a stack of books I wanted to read.
I'd show them to her, this is after I poured over as much of it as I could to make sure it was acceptable, and let her look through them to see if they would be appropriate for my age. Every single time she would find something that I missed.
Every
Single
Time.
And it would drive me absolutely up the wall how she would always spot something I didn't after I made it a point to go through each one. Hated it as a kid but as an adult I appreciated it. She protected me, but also gave me freedom to learn. I joke about it with her sometimes about how she must have had some kind of superpower.
While I do support the idea that parents should be more involved in what their kids are reading, I do not think banning a book is necessary. At all. It's actually counterproductive. Now, book bans are nothing new. They have reoccurred throughout American history. The list is constantly updating and/or changing during the school year as new books are released. And new authors poke their heads out into the book writing scene.
According to Pen.org (that’s right, ya girl did some research!) Bans occurred in 138 school districts in 32 states. These districts represent 5,049 schools with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students.
Of the 1648 books banned: 41% address LGBTQ+ themes, 40% contain protagonists of color. 21% directly address issues of race and racism. 22% contain some type of sexual content, (anywhere from abortions to teen pregnancy) 10% have themes of activism and human rights. 9% are biographies or memoirs, and 4% are related to religious minorities ie. Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths.
Now, like I said before, I believe that parents should be aware of what their children are reading but banning a book in its entirety is ridiculous. More often than not these kids are living the lives these books portray. We can't ban their reality. I feel like our attention would be better focused elsewhere instead of trying to police what people are reading. But that's just me.
In this upcoming fall: October 1st-7th to be exact, there is something happening called: Banned Books week. This encourages readers, librarians, authors, and educators alike who oppose the book ban to become involved. You can find more information on what this means on www.pen.org and under the hashtag: FreetheBooks!
This is a silly story I wrote after listening to a few friends talk about horrible dates they had. Thankfully, my husband has snatched me off the market. Just in time. Because after seeing the screenshots and hearing the horrid first date stories, the dating pool is filled with concrete.
This story is a podcast original, so I don't have a link to it anywhere other than on the episode of the podcast. That means you'll have to listen to hear Door Dash Date and know what it's about. I hope you decide to check it out. If you do, let me know what you think. Make sure you rate and review this podcast on whatever platform you’re using. You can leave me a message on The Instagram Page dedicated to the Podcast. I love to talk about books! You can also find me posting detailed reviews on The Booky Babe page on instagram and you can even find me on TikTok under the same name, but bear with me. Ya girl is still new on TikTok. All the transitions still give me whiplash. Basically, I said all that to say: if you want to say hello there are multiple ways to contact me. Take your pick, but one way or another I will talk to you soon. Thank you so much for tuning in!
Happy Reading Friends! ❤
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