Censorship

Are you ready for Banned Books Week? The American Library Association (ALA) and readers from around the world are gearing up to demonstrate their support for free speech next week by participating in a Virtual Read-Out of their favorite banned and challenged books. The event will serve as the backdrop for the announcement of ALA’s Banned Books Week Heroes, honoring those people and groups who stand up for intellectual freedom and the right to read.

Margaret Atwood’s award-winning dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale (McClelland and Stewart, 1985) will remain accessible to 12th graders in Guilford, NC, high school libraries, following a local school board vote this week to retain the book on its suggested reading list.

High school students in Randolph County Schools in North Carolina may no longer access Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (Random House, 1952) in their school libraries following a vote on Monday by the board of education to remove it from shelves.

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.