Links to Click: October 20, 2023

A little dutch bunny is a young adult obsession and bosses be mad you're taking your sick time.

There has been a series of weird events happening in my town over the last two weeks. Last week, an explosion that leveled 3 homes and left 22 people unable to go home or access their home (no one was hurt, which is unbelievable, though the city has a lot to answer about why they told a church to evacuate but told locals–including those in the homes here–to shelter in place). This week, a city-wide power outage at 8 pm, where no one could get an answer as to why and a fire alarm at my kid’s school right at drop off. Some planets somewhere are out of line and it’s showing.

I did force myself to go for a walk this week when I was living too much in my head. Putting my feet on the Earth and taking photos of the beauty of this season really did help.

Forgive me, then, for a lighter load of things to share.

My Work This Week

• Over on

  Literary Activism
  , I talked about how gatekeepers are giving up the book ban fight. We can see it in Scholastic’s bigot button decisions, but we can also point to it in the reappearance of all-white “best of” and bestseller lists. There’s also a really long book censorship roundup. I should stop even giving it a description of quantity because it’s always really long.

• The federal subcommittee hearing yesterday about inappropriate books in schools almost gave me an aneurysm, so I stopped watching when Jonathan was done with his testimony. It is interesting that, as the lone person against book bans and as a Jewish person, he was asked about Hamas. How many dogwhistles you got there?

• I’m on this week’s episode of All The Backlist, talking about three great comics to read.

What I’ve Consumed This Week

• The Dream podcast is back! Actually, it’s been back for a couple of months but no one told me. The first season was all about the wellness industry and hooked me. I didn’t think the second season was as good, but this third season, on the topic of life coaching, is hooking me again.

• Are you familiar with Miffy? Not Muzzy, but Miffy. I am not, but it is apparently A Thing with the kids. [Gift link].

• Gun ownership is up among teenagers, which is sure a statistic I’m surprised by, given how many of them have been touched by gun violence.

• I saw a lot of folks sharing this Wall Street Journal article about how people are using their sick days and bosses don’t like it and acted…surprised? The WSJ is a conservative paper, so naturally, their angle is going to be about the poor bosses who have to deal with employees who use their granted benefits.

• Bonus: if you’re a children’s librarian looking for a new job, my local library is hiring. Good starting pay (y’all, my first masters-required library job paid $32,000 and that was not that long ago), cost of living in this community is slightly lower than national average, and the town itself is amazing–you’ll get to do a lot of fun things as librarian and have access to Metra to get into the city easily, too.

I should get an app to identify all the kinds of mushrooms I encounter, though popping a photo into Google image search works fine, too. These are Mycena galericulata.

My next counseling class begins next week, and I’ve got to start thinking about which television show or movie I’ll be analyzing through family/couples system theories. Any great newer YA releases I might consider? I’ve not kept up with what’s streaming because there too many of them and not enough of me! I’d also consider a film with a complicated queer teen romance at the center (I’d pick A League of Their Own but I don’t have the capacity to rewatch an entire series–I need 90-120 minutes tops here).

Another query for y’all: after I marathon Britney’s memoir next week, I’ll be ready for a good audiobook about mushrooms. Not so much on identification but about mushrooms more broadly, how they grow, why there are so many kinds, and so forth. I know there are a few books that fit, but where to begin? I’d love any suggestions.

See you Sunday.