A Michigan parent’s complaint that Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition is too frank for middle schoolers and should be replaced with an older, expurgated edition has been rejected by the local school board.
Update: Michigan School District Rejects Parent’s Challenge to Anne Frank’s Diary
By on May 13, 2013 Leave a Comment
Childproofed: When Your School Has Inflexible Filters | Scales on Censorship
By on April 23, 2013 Leave a Comment
Pat Scales, chair of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee, answers readers’ questions about censorship. This month, Scales addresses what to do when your school has inflexible or strict Internet filters, including strategies for aiding students in completing research assignments and advice on instituting new policies for challenged materials.
Fresh Paint: Membership and Censorship
By on April 16, 2013 2 Comments
No matter how many school classrooms I visit, tours I lead, or new patrons I welcome into the library, I cannot help but stare in shock every time I am asked, “What is the cost of a membership?” Once I realize they aren’t asking me a reference question (the local Costco fee is $55 per household, and the nearest gym charges $83 per month) I respond, “Unless you drop a book in the bath tub or return something past its due date we will never charge you for anything—ever—at this library.”
‘Persepolis’ Restored to Chicago School Libraries; Classroom Access Still Restricted
By on March 19, 2013 3 Comments
After a directive by Chicago Public Schools last week to restrict student access for all grades below 11 to Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s award-winning memoir about growing up during the Iranian Revolution, CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett quickly issued a memo clarifying that the graphic novel should remain on library shelves. However, educators remain wary about the classroom restrictions, prompting the ALA’s Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and the Freedom to Read Foundation to respond.
Oh, Mama!: What to do when a parent wants to narrow her child’s reading choices | Scales on Censorship January 2013
By on January 1, 2013 Leave a Comment
As I was preparing a library card for a new student, she handed me a two-page list of books that her mother won’t allow her to read. Then later on, her mother called and told me she expected me to monitor what her daughter was reading. What should I do?
You need to tell the mother that it’s not your role to monitor students’ reading. If she has an issue with the titles that her daughter chooses, then she [...]
Pew & Berkman Report: Parents, Teens, and Online Privacy
By on December 19, 2012 Leave a Comment
The Pew Internet & American Life Project, in collaboration with the Berkman Center at Harvard University, has recently released “Parents, Teens, and Online Privacy”. The report—the first in a Pew/Berkman Pew logoseries with a focus on youth privacy issues—combines a number of quotes taken from focus group interviews conducted by Berkman’s Youth and Media team with Pew data from a nationally representative phone survey of parents and their teens, with a focus on the use of social networking sites. The report is fully downloadable, and may be searched online as well.
Calling All Teens: Banned Books Video Contest
By on November 28, 2012 Leave a Comment
Got a great story to tell about a banned book or another disturbing incident involving censorship? Then encourage your teens to enter the 2012 Youth Free Expression Project’s (YFEP) film contest—and give them a chance to win up to $1,000 and a free trip to the Big Apple.
The annual competition, open to kids 19 and under, hopes to educate youth about their First Amendment rights and the importance of free speech. It’s a perfect way to teach a lesson on [...]
ACLU Files Suit Against Utah School District for Removing Polacco’s ‘In Our Mothers’ House’ from General Circulation
By on November 27, 2012 4 Comments
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation has filed suit against a Utah school district that removed “In Our Mothers’ House,” a picture book about a family with two mothers from school library shelves.
Mum’s the Word: What to do when a pushy principal has questionable principles | Scales on Censorship
By on November 1, 2012 Leave a Comment
In addition to reading your column, what’s the best way to keep up with news about censorship?
Start by checking out the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (www.ala.org/offices/oif), which maintains a database of challenges to library materials. These challenges are reported in its Intellectual Freedom Newsletter ($50 a year), unless the person reporting the challenge asks ALA to keep the information confidential. Another helpful resource is Robert P. Doyle’s Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read [...]
Mix It Up Day Draws Protests from Christian Group
By on October 25, 2012 1 Comment
A Christian group’s protests has spurred some schools to pull their involvement from next week’s Mix it Up at Lunch Day—an 11-year-old program meant to reduce prejudice among students that’s sponsored by the Teaching Tolerance project, part of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Ellen Hopkins, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Honored for Fighting Censorship
By on October 8, 2012 2 Comments
The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) will honor award-winning authors Ellen Hopkins and Phyllis Reynolds Naylor next month for their fight to defend free speech.
Interview: Why Lauren Myracle’s Proud to Top ALA’s List of Most Challenged Books
By on October 2, 2012 3 Comments
This week marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week, an annual event that celebrates the freedom to read. We caught up by email with bestselling author Lauren Myracle, who ranked number one on the American Library Association’s top 10 most frequently challenged books in 2011 and 2009—and who also made the list in 2008 and 2007.
Bill Moyers Joins ALA’s Banned Books Week Virtual Read Out
By on September 27, 2012 Leave a Comment
Award-winning journalist Bill Moyers has joined the American Library Association’s (ALA) Virtual Read Out campaign with a three-minute video on book banning and the dangers of censorship.
What to Do When Kids Aren’t Allowed to Read Digital Books in School
By on September 16, 2012
Pat Scales, chair of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and SLJ columnist, regularly fields questions on banned library materials. But “this is the first I’ve encountered in which a book’s format has been censored,” she writes.
Editor Marks Banned Books Week by Being Locked Up at Vonnegut Memorial Library
By on September 5, 2012 Leave a Comment
The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library is expecting an unusual window display starting September 30—writer and editor Corey Michael Dalton plans to mark Banned Books Week by camping out there to demonstrate the value of our freedom to read.
Interview with Lois Lowry, Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner
By on May 21, 2010
By Anita Silvey
The Edwards Award-winner talks about <i>The Giver</i>’s controversial past and, yes, its enigmatic ending
By Anita Silvey — School Library Journal, 06/01/2007
Who would’ve guessed that the author of a sci-fi masterpiece would live in a Federal Colonial house with a picket fence? But then again, it’s never wise to second-guess Lois Lowry. In the early ’90s, in a radical departure from her previous 20 novels for young readers, Lowry wrote The Giver (1993), the tale of a futuristic society [...]
A Dirty Little Secret: Self-Censorship
By on May 20, 2010
By Debra Lau Whelan
Self-censorship is rampant and lethal
By Debra Lau Whelan — School Library Journal, 02/01/2009
Illustration by Brian Stauffer
When Barry Lyga finished writing his second young adult novel, he knew there’d be trouble. After all, Boy Toy was about a 12-year-old who has sex with a beautiful teacher twice his age, and Lyga expected it to spark letters to local papers, trigger complaints to the school board, and incite some parents to yank it off library shelves.
But none [...]
