Banned Library Podcast

The Harry Potter that started it all! Join Evan as he talks about wizards, wizardry, how Hogwarts is a hellscape, and how unicorns are not innocent.

The Hardy Boys are on the case when Tower Mansion is robbed and poor people are the worst! Wigs and hobos abound!

We start with Meg Murray awake on a dark and stormy night and go into the story of Tony, one time lover turned horrible library patron.

What would happen if you took Lovecraft and made him believe in the power of love? That's the heart and soul of this book, traveling across the stars on the wings of math, facing horrible abominations and alien figures, and finding out the universe ain't so bad after all. While my first reaction as an adult is to reject the ending as too neat, too concise and optimistic in how easily little Meg defeats the monster and saves her family, I see how a young child would love it. Thinking back, I do not remember much about the story when I first read it in sixth grade, but the love of math and the ideas of science that it implanted in me has always stuck. A quick, fun read, this book holds up as a fun entry for children but lacks a strong narrative for adults. Kinda gotta love a big, furry, tentacled, blind creature named Aunt Beast, though.

A reading from Bump in the Night and then Evan talks about having and being a ghost in a house.

When evil comes to pray on poor Dudley the Stork, he calls upon his animal friends to help him. Too bad they are all crazy idiots. The quick and funny ghost story is written for just beginning to read children as a first chapter book containing surprises with a bit of complexity in the language. Honestly, the twist at the end is not one I will spoil as written, but it is sure to make you say Hay! I hate puns. Stand out character is the medium Madam Creepy, the mystic alligator. The drawings are fun and in keeping with the artist and writer's other collaborations. A fun time.

Meet Carrie. She's a sad and lonely girl who gets picked on until she kills everyone. With super powers. Like you do. The novel is a blend of third person narration and secondary fictional material outlining some history, background, and context for the events of the novel where Carrie gets picked on and kills everyone. This blend can be jarring, but also aids in the suspense. The reader knows where all this bullying, premarital sex, cursing, and general shitty teen behavior will lead as soon as we learn the crazy girl can move things with her mind, but the "nonfiction" additions help stretch out the quick pacing. If you are a Stephen King purist, you already know this book by heart. Everyone else deserves to check it out from the library.

As a treasure hunt type of novel, when the action revs up, you find yourself turning the pages faster and faster to see what happens next, then going back to see what pop culture references you missed. And that is what makes half this book fun, the references. If you were a child of the 80s that grew up on movies, TV and video games as your primary child rearing devices, this book should hit every chord in your brain bringing back memories on nearly every page. If you don’t know a lot about that kind of stuff... well, the story is enjoyable, just get ready to skip a lot of sections describing in detail various video game scenarios and tricks. A solid book that leans heavily on nostalgia, but still makes you wonder what is going to happen next.

A novel told from the point of a young girl that deals with racism, sexism, classicism, and violence in the deep south. Join our narrator as he gets into the issues of his homeland and also shares stories about rolling in tires and old pianos in gymnasiums. Subscribe on iTunes or our feedburner RSS feed to get new and old episodes or donate to the Patreon for even more!

A book about eggs, sperm, birth, babies, families, spawning, tearing free the burden of your own existential horror, and making yourself irrelevant through reproduction.

A boy and his magical grandmother battle evil while going to church and finding fish gods. Also, the farmer and the cowman can be friends.

A child gets sent to bed without dinner and in the throes of hunger pains experiences vivid hallucinations of wild things and voyages.

A small man is sucked out of his clothes and into a hellish wasteland where he must defeat a cult of baking Hitlers before they give rise to the abomination known as M'ilk.

A bunch of kids decide it would be funny to kidnap their teacher but everything goes horribly wrong, mostly because one of them is Bonkers McCrazynuts.

An disembodied voice commands an artist to draw a star and the hellish helix of conditioned response spirals out of control.