Book Challenge

VIDEO: Steve McQueen Outmaneuvers Censors in Arizona

By |2019-03-07T21:45:50-05:00March 4th, 2013|Blog|

Steve McQueen's biography, "Tales of a Lurid Life" was apparently too much so for some patron of the Flagstaff City-Coconino County Library in Arizona. Reports don't specify why the challenge was lodged, but a library committee ultimately decided to keep the book on its shelves. In honor of this narrow evasion, we give you: an epic 6 minute-long motorcycle escape scene [...]

“Robopocalypse” Challenge in Knoxville, TN

By |2020-01-03T13:48:00-05:00August 28th, 2012|Blog|

This summer, the Hardin Valley Academy wanted to keep its STEM students interested in school subjects during their vacation. After determining that the best way to do this was probably not by assigning weekly physics equations, the school assigned Daniel H. Wilson's best-selling sci-fi novel Robopocalypse (Doubleday) as the program's summer read. A parent of an incoming freshman voiced his concerns [...]

News Round-up: Book Challenges, Huck Finn Racism and Whoopi

By |2020-01-03T13:47:59-05:00July 17th, 2012|Blog|

The news is blossoming today with book challenge-related stories, and we thought we'd take a moment to share. 1.) A teacher's aide in Dubuque, Iowa was fired (though she apparently about to quit anyway) after disrupting classes by insisting that Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a racist book that shouldn't be taught in schools. Afterward, a judge [...]

“The Dirty Cowboy” Cause Lives On

By |2020-01-03T13:47:45-05:00June 12th, 2012|Blog|

You remember The Dirty Cowboy, our favorite book ban in May? School board members may be standing their ground, but they haven't heard the last of residents perturbed by the ban. The Patriot-News and The Lebanon Daily News both featured an Op-Ed piece by Annville-Cleona parent Tim White this weekend. White writes: "Although ACSD board President Tom Tschudy stated that [...]

Talking “Dark” YA Lit with Terry Trueman

By |2024-08-26T18:34:30-04:00May 30th, 2012|Blog|

Discussing the "dark" qualities of YA books and their strong language is much in vogue of late. Yes, books can"scar" you--in that they effect you, they leave their mark, they cause an emotional reaction that sticks with you after you've read them. There seems to be an impulse to keep teens "unscarred" in the well-meaning, but perhaps naive hope that [...]

Song of Solomon Prevails in Franklin Township!

By |2024-10-30T10:58:07-04:00July 9th, 2010|Blog|

After a long and drawn-out challenge process, this week Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon finally prevailed in Franklin Township!  The denouement to this extended drama came down to a special convening of the Franklin Township school board set for this past Monday evening (July 6th).  No one knew how it would turn out.  New members of the school board, whose [...]

Not even dictionaries are safe for children?

By |2019-03-14T17:36:45-04:00January 29th, 2010|Blog|

School officials at Menifee Union School District temporarily removed copies of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition for containing graphic terms like “oral sex" after a parent complained. (But as it turns out, the dictionary did not even contain this term...) Nonetheless, NCAC executive director Joan Bertin explains, Removing a book should be based solely on its educational value, not on [...]

The Report Card: ENGLISH

By |2019-03-07T22:42:39-05:00June 16th, 2009|Blog|

GRADE: C+ Books - always a hot button issue in the censorship debate. This year, similar to previous years, some curriculum classics got challenged. Here's a few of the fights we saw over books being taught in middle- and high-school classes. In December, the Coeur d’Alene School Board voted unanimously to return 26 titles (among them Brave New World, Tom [...]

Books on the brain

By |2024-08-02T13:03:02-04:00January 21st, 2009|Blog|

It's a hot time for book challenges, bans and questions. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: pulled from the high school library, back in the library today. Satanic Verses: Salman Rushdie reflects on attempted censorship by his 20-year fatwa The Bookseller of Kabul: "temporarily banned in Wyandotte Public Schools" while Superintendent reviews the book. Night Talk: one parent [...]

Go to Top