As Banned Books Week (9/22-9/29) kicks into gear, the Kids’ Right to Read Project finds itself battling censorship issues in half a dozen states. On Monday, KRRP joined other free speech organizations in opposition to the recent ban on Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
NEW YORK 9/23/2013 — The Kids’ Right to Read Project (KRRP) issued letters today in three ongoing censorship battles: the recent banning of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man in North Carolina, the disinvitation of YA author Rainbow Rowell from an Anoka County (MN) school, and the cancellation of a talk by author Meg Medina in Cumberland Middle School in Virginia.
KRRP, founded by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, defends the freedom to read in schools and libraries nationwide. KRRP is sponsored in part by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Association of American Publishers.
Last week, the Randolph County Board of Education in North Carolina voted against the recommendation of its review committee to ban the use of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952).
KRRP has worked on more than twelve censorship cases in the last 6 weeks alone.Currently cases include a controversy surrounding the use of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in classrooms around the country and the attempt to remove Tanya Lee Stone’s A Bad Boy Can Be Good For a Girl from school libraries in Currituck County, North Carolina.
“The last two months plainly show that book challenges are still common in this country, and bans will deprive schools of valuable texts without courageous, local defenders and national support,” said KRRP Coordinator Acacia O’Connor.
Find out about other recent KRRP cases here.