News & Features

The lawsuit against Escambia (FL) County School District includes authors David Levithan, George M. Johnson, Ashley Hope Pérez, and Kyle Lukoff as plaintiffs. In other censorship news, a judge removed parent groups from another Florida lawsuit; titles were taken off the shelves in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and more.

What do you do when trustees pressure a library to cut summer programming due to book challenges? Pat Scales answers that question and more.  

Parents in Pickens County, SC, along with the NAACP, are suing the district and charging that the removal of Stamped is a violation of their children's First Amendment rights; a Nebraska high school librarian resigns in protest over a new book policy; book banners threaten publishers and public library funding; and more.

Organizations and conservative school boards that champion censorship attempts have broadened their messaging to target public library funding and professional conferences for school and public librarians.

Community members without children in the schools won't be able to challenge books in one Tennessee district; Iowa tries to define "sex act;" and Maia Kobabe speaks with PEN America about Gender Queer, young readers, and the firestorm that came long after the graphic novel was published.

The challenger claimed that the graphic novel "damaged souls." The authors have several things to say in response.

Censorship remains the focus of SLJ readers, as ALA's Most Challenged Books and restricted access to library databases lead our most popular content, alongside Refreshing the Canon recommendations in partnership with NCTE.

In the latest censorship news, President Joe Biden mentioned fighting book banning in his first campaign video for the 2024 election, a Navy veteran speaks out in Florida, PEN America releases an interactive map of state school library bans, and more. 

Attempts to restrict access to digital materials have been led largely by conservative parent groups and political activists who claim they are protecting students from “obscene” materials.