The lauded young adult novel—a story about Junior, a Spokane Indian who transfers from his school on the reservation to a rich, white school—received a starred review from School Library Journal, and is recommended for a grade 7–10 audience. In the original review, Chris Shoemaker says, “The teen’s determination to both improve himself and overcome poverty, despite the handicaps of birth, circumstances, and race, delivers a positive message.”

Nevertheless, Queens parent Kelly-Ann McMullan-Preiss stepped forward last week with the support of about eight other parents to request that an alternative assignment be given to their children. McMullan-Preiss cited the repeated discussion of “masturbation” as the main reason for her complaint, according to the Daily News.

Attempts by SLJ to reach administrators and school library staff for comment were unsuccessful,  however the original story has since made the rounds on several news outlets and through social media, and on Twitter, the author has responded personally. Alexie, after a banning of his book unrelated to the Queens controversy, also said recently in an interview on the National Coalition Against Censorship blog that, “I have no objection to a parent not wanting their kid to read my book. But when they try to control a school’s curriculum, that’s when the fight is on. So the second they try to make it a policy, no, I can’t think of when it’s acceptable because whatever the text, you can teach and learn from it.”

Alexie’s publisher echoes those sentiments. Megan Tingley, executive vice president and publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, tells SLJ that, her company is “proud” to be the publisher of the book, and that the company is “opposed to censorship of any kind.”

She adds, “We are dismayed about the recent decision of a middle school in Queens, NY, to remove the critically acclaimed book from its required reading list.” The book, she says, “is a story about hope and resilience. We applaud Sherman Alexie’s triumphant work of contemporary fiction, which shares a Native American experience that is both poignant and uplifting and has enlightened and engaged countless readers.”

The NCAC has also come out in support of Alexie. Its Kids Right to Read project coordinator Acacia O’Connor notes that, “Studies have shown that students who have some semblance of choice, read more. Alexie’s book is often selected for reluctant readers because it’s so popular and kids really feel that the characters and their experiences speak to them.”

She also says, “The message of this book is entirely positive and uplifting. I’m sure it was selected because highlights a teen character that has confronted adversity. If the parents have some objection to reading a specific title, we always encourage that an alternative is offered instead. If the book was selected by the teachers or school media specialist, it was for a reason.” The NCAC plans to honor Alexie in November 2013 for his work on free speech.

YFEP winners Alexis Opper, Naomi Clements, and Daniel Pritchard at Youth Voices Uncensored.

“Books have been written for centuries to preserve and exhibit new thought,” says filmmaker Daniel Pritchard in his short film Excluded. “Why would we ever want to get rid of that?” Pritchard—winner of the  National Coalition Against Censorship‘s Youth Free Expression Project People’s Choice Award—was on hand with other young filmmakers this Saturday at the New York Film Academy for Youth Voices Uncensored, a special screening for all the winning films in NCAC’s annual film contest.

In addition to the winning YFEP films, works directed and produced by young people from the Global Action Project, a social justice organization for young people, and Reel Works, a teen filmmaking mentorship program, were also shown at the event.

The Youth Free Expression Project, made possible by the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, invites people ages 19 and younger to submit videos related to censorship. This year, participants were given the theme “You’re Reading What?!?” and asked to create films focusing on book banning.

YFEP winners are joined at the screening by Karim Alexander, a producer at Reel Works Teen Filmmaking.

Through films infused with arresting visual imagery, references to actual book challenges, and poignant personal accounts, the teens vigorously defend the right to read freely, and demonstrate a strong passion for freedom of speech.

First-place winner Eden Ames relies upon the contrast between black and white and color film to underscore the restrictive, limiting nature of censorship. Her film Waking depicts a bleak, grey environment comprised of blindfolded inhabitants. A young boy is scolded by his mother when he attempts to read, warning him that books could potentially confuse him, but by removing his blindfold and accessing a library, he soon discovers a new vibrant, colorful world. Acacia O’Conor of NCAC praises the film for its nuanced look at censorship. “It admits that a lot of the things we read confuse us,” she says. ”They’re difficult to swallow, these books that show us the ugliness of our lives sometimes, but they are so rewarding.”

The filmmakers also express concern for current and recent book challenges. In her film Banned, second-place winner Naomi Clements cites the recent challenging of Patricia Polacco’s In Our Mother’s House, which portrays a family with two mothers. School librarians in Davis County, Utah were forced to shelve the book behind their desks until full access was restored.

Clements employs simple yet powerful animated images—bookshelves being locked away, a child staring at a book hidden behind a desk—as she narrates her beliefs in her own and others’ right to read: “It is not the right of one parent or person to decide what everyone else can read. I do not want to live in a world dictated by the insecurities of others.”

Third-place winner Alexis Opper also references recent book challenges in her film You Do Not Speak for Me, but delves into her personal feelings on the issue as well. The film shows Opper visually rearranging her own favorite books that have been banned or challenged—such as Matilda, Just Ella, and Speak—as she describes the need to safeguard access to all titles. And she pleas to well-meaning adults seeking to remove seemingly disturbing material in an attempt to protect teens: “You do not make darkness disappear by covering it up. You don’t save us by taking away reality, and you don’t determine what helps and what hurts.”

Michael O’Neil, NCAC communications director, wrapped the screening by announcing the theme for the next 2013 contest: “Video Games in the Crosshairs.” Because video games are so often viewed as potentially dangerous to young people by parents, legislators, and educators, NCAC encourages young people to share their views on this subject that directly affects them.

O’Neil emphasizes the importance of giving young people the chance to voice their opinions. “What we really strive to do with this film contest,” he says, “is to give young people a chance to speak for themselves. There are so many adult authority figures who spend a lot of time speaking for kids…and we need more opportunities for young people to speak up for themselves.”

This year’s theme was “You’re Reading WHAT?!?!” Students age 19 or under were asked to create a short video about a time when an adult tried to censor something they were reading, or about a book-banning incident in the news that involved young people. There are 12 videos among the semifinalists, and voting is easy. The video with the most “likes” will be declared the People’s Choice winner. The deadline for casting votes is February 15 at 5 p.m. EST. The People’s Choice Award-winner will receive a Certificate of Free Expression Excellence from the NCAC.

While the public is choosing their favorite, a stellar panel of judges will be hard at work choosing the grand prize, second place, and third place winners. This year’s judges include Kirby Dick, a documentary director and Academy Award-nominee (The Invisible War), National Book Award-winner and frequently challenged author Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian (Little, Brown, 2007)), Cecily von Ziegesar (author of the oft-banned “Gossip Girls” series (Little, Brown)), Onion AV Club National Associate Editor and pop culture maven Tasha Robinson, Kristen Fitzpatrick of Women Make Movies, and 2011 YFEP Film Contest winners Jake Gogats and Caitlin Wolper. Winners will receive $1,000, $500. and $250 respectively and a trip to New York City to attend the Youth Voices Uncensored event. All winners will be announced by the end of February, so check NCAC.org for updates. Get voting now!

Books for GLBTQ Youth

A Rainbow: Forty-nine books from 31 publishers have been selected by the Rainbow Project for their 2013 Rainbow Book List, a project of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) and the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) of the American Library Association. To make the final selection, the committee evaluated over 150 books for youth, from birth to age 18, published between July 2011 and December 2012. The titles run the gamut from science fiction to fiction to graphic novels, among other genres. The committee notes that there is a dearth of nonfiction titles for any age being published, “including memoirs and history so vital to tying a culture together.” The complete list can be accessed at the GLBTRT website.

The following are the top ten titles: Starting from Here by Lisa Jenn Bigelow (Amazon, 2012), Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills (Flux, 2012), The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth (HarperCollins, 2012), Ask the Passengers by A. S. King (Little, Brown, 2012), Adaptation by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown, 2012), The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Ecco, 2012), The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to Their Younger Selves edited by Sarah Moon (Scholastic, 2012), Chulito: A Novel by Charles Rice-Gonzalez (Magnus Bks., 2011), Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saénz (S & S, 2012), and Drama by Raina Telgemeier (Scholastic, 2012).

Publishing News: New Imprints

Algonquin Young Readers is a new imprint being created by Algonquin Books for readers ages 7 to 17. The books will run the gamut from short illustrated novels for beginning readers to topical young adult novels. The first list will launch in Fall 2013 with five novels. There will be three title for middle grades—The Time Fetch by Amy Herick, Three Ring Rascals, Book 1: The Show Must Go On by Kate and M. Sarah Klise, and Anton Cecil: Cats at Sea by Lisa and Valerie Martin. If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan and Hollis Seamon’s Somebody Up There Hates You are the two young adult titles. The imprint plans to grow to the point where it will publish 15 titles each year and include some nonfiction books with their primarily fiction list, according to Elise Howard, editor and publisher of Algonquin Books for Young Readers.

Amazon Children’s Publishing is launching two new imprints—Two Lions and Skyscape—in Spring 2013. Picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade fiction will be published under the Two Lions banner, with Margery Cuyler as editorial manager, while Skyscape will focus on young adult titles under the leadership of Tim Ditlow.  According to Amazon, Two Lions—one representing the past and the other the future—“is committed to forming strong, creative relationships with authors and illustrators to bring originality of design and literary quality to readers.” Skyscape plans to bring “a wide range of stories with unique voices, compelling narratives, and intriguing perspectives to readers.” Two Lions’s inaugural titles Ininclude Gandhi: A March to the Sea by Alice B. McGinty, Poco Loco by J. R. Kraus, and Slugger by Susan Pearson. The titles for teens are Me & My Invisible Guy by Sarah Jeffrey, Reason to Breathe by Rebecca Donovan, and You Know What You Have to Do by Bonnie Shimko, among others.

Ebook Lending

A new model: Ingram Content Group has added a new content access model to its MyiLibrary e-content platform. The Access Model, designed to help libraries make their ebook lending more flexible, lets libraries “purchase a set of access credits for an ebook and lend it simultaneously to multiple patrons for a set cost and lending period.” This multi-user platform assures library patrons that they will have access to popular titles. “Patron usage of ebooks continues to climb,” noted Dan Sheehan, vice president and general manager, Ingram Content Group Library Services, “and the addition of our new multi-user concurrent Access Model gives libraries the flexibility to meet the content requirements of their patrons and manage budgets effectively.”

The MyiLibrary platform currently offers nearly 40,000 titles from leading publishers and can be accessed 24/7. Random House has just announced that it will be adding more than 36,000 frontlist and backlist titles to MyiLibrary from all Random House Inc. imprints and their publisher-distribution clients, including National Geographic, Smithsonian Books, and Wizards of the Coast, and others.

Watch Nathan Water’s video on textbook censorship, a book banning for the modern era. Nathan’s short film is one of the semifinalists in the National Coalition Against Censorship‘s 2012 Youth Free Expression Project Film Contest.

Newbery medalist Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was honored at the NCAC’s annual Celebration of Free Speech and Its Defenders ceremony.

New York Times best-selling author Ellen Hopkins, Newbery medalist Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, and First Amendment activist Chris Finan were all recognized by the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) on November 12 for their work defending free speech.

NCAC’s annual Celebration of Free Speech and Its Defenders ceremony in New York City brought together more than 200 authors, publishers, and First Amendment advocates to honor and raise money for the 38-year-old organization, which protects free expression and access to information.

Joan Bertin, NCAC Executive Director, presented awards to the nominees.

Hopkins’s books, including the “Crank” trilogy (S&S), deal with such hard-hitting topic as incest, teen prostitution and drug addiction. Hopkins herself has often been the target of censorship. In 2010, an invitation for her to speak at a Texas teen lit festival was withdrawn after a middle-school librarian voiced concern about her students’ hearing Hopkins’ presentation. The previous year, Hopkins was uninvited to speak at a school in Norman, OK when a parent asked that Hopkins’s novel Glass (S & S, 2007), the story of a girl’s crystal meth addiction, be removed from district middle school libraries—and that no student be allowed to attend Hopkins’s presentation.

In accepting the award, Hopkins expressed her concern that children from conservative regions of the country are not exposed to people who are different from them or disturbing situations like those faced by the characters in her books. “In the red part of this country there are young people who don’t hear the other side,” said Hopkins. She believes that her books give young people a window into the lives of teens grappling with difficult issues.

Author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is no stranger to censorship either. Her “Alice” series (S&S) has attracted ongoing attention from censors due to their themes of teenage relationships, dating and sex. The books have made the American Library Association (ALA) list of most challenged books for several years. Naylor’s 25th “Alice” book, Always Alice (S&S) is due out in 2013.

In accepting the award, Naylor thanked librarians and teachers who fight to keep her books on the shelves. Naylor’s Newbery-winning Shiloh (Atheneum, 1991), about a young boy and an abused dog, was not immune to censorship, either. A principal and librarian in Louisiana had to hire lawyers to keep the book from being banned because of its inclusion of the words “hell” and “damn.”

The NCAC ceremony also recognized Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, who also has served as chairman of the NCAC for over a decade, Finan was thanked for his service to the organization and for being a defender of the First Amendment.

Joan Bertin, NCAC Executive Director, presented the awards to each nominee. The award statuettes, titled Digitus Impudicus, portrayed a hand with a raised middle finger.

Attendees also had the opportunity to bid on controversial book covers created by noted illustrators for the event, with proceeds going to NCAC. Drawing the greatest reaction from the audience were particularly risqué designs, entitled Tommy’s Pussy Wagon by Betsy Lewin, Blow Me: A Book About Whistles by Adam Rex, and Holiday Hummers: A Burst of Christmas Cheer by Tomie dePaola.