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Planned school visits by YA authors Meg Medina and Rainbow Rowell set to coincide with Banned Books Week (September 22 to 28) have been cancelled due to local challenges over the content of their acclaimed books, the National Coalition Against Censorship reports.
Chair of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee Pat Scales responds to questions about book challenges, summer reading lists, and boundaries for school library parent volunteers.
Toni Morrison’s acclaimed novel The Bluest Eye—which tackles such difficult subjects as racism, incest, and child abuse—could become the latest in a wide range of books that have been officially challenged in Alabama’s 132 school districts in recent years, if State Senator Bill Holtzclaw, R-Madison, has his way. The legislator is calling for its removal from school libraries in the state, a position that has so far resonated with at least one local school board member.
The inclusion of Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian—winner of the 2007 National Book Award—on a required summer reading list for sixth graders has raised the ire of a group of parents in Belle Harbor, NY, who have successfully called for its removal, the Daily News has reported.
Chair of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee Pat Scales tackles censorship questions about The Hunger Games, grammar in “Junie B. Jones” series, and why reporting materials challenges to the ALA OIF is so important.
Steven Chbosky’s epistolary coming-of-age tale The Perks of Being a Wallflower is being restored to eighth-grade classrooms in Glen Ellyn District 41, a suburb of Chicago, following a recent challenge over concerns about the book’s sexual content and explicit language.
Two very different young adult books—the first volume of Amy Ignatow’s lively graphic novel series “The Popularity Papers” and Dave Pelzer’s harrowing memoir A Child Called It—will both remain on school library shelves in the Prosser school district in Yakima, WA, following several school board votes on the titles, according to the district’s superintendent, Ray Tolcacher. Rich Korb, a teacher at Prosser High School, had challenged both books for removal this winter.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
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).
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.
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.
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.
