Joint letter includes American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression, Association for American Publishers, and PEN American Center. The letter was quoted by a New York Times article about the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.
The Dirty Cowboy, a children's book about a cowboy taking his annual bath was removed from school libraries after a parent objected to the cowboy's partial nudity, calling it "pornography" The Kids' Right to Read Project is urging the book's return.
When Linda Tyndall heard that copies of the best-selling novel Fifty Shades of Grey had been removed from the Brevard County Public Libraries, she was concerned and decided to take action. Her petition on Change.org has over 1,600 signatures. Tomorrow, Tyndall and other petitioners will make their voice heard at a meeting of the County Library Board.
Students in a high school English class in Sumner County, T.N. chose John Green's award-winning Looking for Alaska as their post-exam in-class reading. Within a week, a single complaint led to a county-wide ban. The Kids' Right to Read Project is standing against this sudden, wide-reaching ban. Read our letter and watch the author's video statement.
E.L. James’ erotic romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey first made headlines as a phenomenal best-seller, topping the Amazon.com, New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists at 3 million copies sold. Now, not surprisingly, the book is getting attention for a different and disturbing reason: censorship. The book has been removed from public libraries in Brevard County, Florida, reportedly because [...]
UPDATE: New video. NCAC speaks out against the removal of the best-selling Fifty Shades of Grey from the Brevard County Library system in Florida as an affront to First Amendment rights. Read our letter to county officials.
PayPal, the dominant processor of Internet payments, retracted its threat (Reuters) to close the accounts of online booksellers who sell works that include descriptions of rape, incest and bestiality.
by Michael O'Neil The book is a romantic thing. From spotting potential sweeties by the books they're reading, to the countless authors who have feverishly committed tales of love to paper for the form, books engage the mind and elicit passion, intrigue and a cozy kind of intimacy perhaps unmatched by any other medium. So to celebrate Valentine's Day, let's [...]
Read the joint statement of over two dozen organizations speaking out against the removal of books used in the Mexican-American Studies Progam in the Tucscon Unified School District
It has been a formidable year for Sherman Alexie, whose Young Adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has been challenged several times, due to would-be censors' unease about sexual and violent content. Alexie’s book was challenged in Helena, Montana, swapped out of the curriculum at Hastings Middle School in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, banned from classrooms in Prineville, [...]
As Banned Book week approaches it appears that the book censors are in competition to suppress some the most interesting and recognized authors and books! Buckling under pressure from vocal individuals with narrow ideological agendas, school districts are betraying their primary responsibility: to provide young people with a quality, wide-ranging education and help them develop into thinking members of society. [...]
"And So It Goes"...to the restricted section of the library? Republic, MO Slaughterhouse Five ban lifted but NCAC says literary gulag is an insult to students and teachers.
The Richland, WA school board has overturned a previous vote that removed Sherman Alexie's award-winning Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian from the district's high school curriculum. The book will now be available to all high school classes! NCAC congratulates the board members who reversed their previous votes, after reading the book for themselves. According to the Richland News [...]
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian will be restored to the curriculum for all high school classes in the district, located in Washington state, following a joint letter from NCAC, ABFFE, AAP, SCBWI, NCTE and PEN
A recent article by Meghan Cox Gurdon in the Wall Street Journal argues that the grim, gory, and dark shadow cast over the genre of young adult literature is inappropriate for its target readers. This controversial review exposes the fear of many parents who worry about children’s exposure to realities believed to be too mature. Cox Gurdon suggests that free [...]
Joint letter to the Fremont, CA Unified School District.
One family is the source of complaints that have, to date, removed two books from course reading lists at Bedford High School. Rather than creating procedures to avoid parental complaints, the school district needs a process for handling complaints and providing alternative reading materials to objecting families -- without depriving the rest of the school access to literary works.
Censorship is about who has permission to speak about what in public. Women, both as speakers and subject, have often been marginalized or stricken from the public sphere, and so we'd like to provide some choice selections from NCAC's work on censorship as it specifically impacts women.
The Texas Civil Rights Project has released a fascinating, detailed report on the nearly 12,000 books banned by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice from entering the state's prison system. The arbitrary nature of the list, including Shakespeare's sonnets and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Wistlestop Cafe, defies any security-based explanation. Check out the searchable Zoho spreadsheet to see if [...]
Prof. Joseph Weiler of NYU, and Editor-In-Chief of the European Journal Of Law, has contributed an incisive editorial regarding charges that he defamed an author through an unfavorable book review: ...I was summoned to appear before an Examining Magistrate in Paris based on a complaint of criminal defamation lodged by the author. Why Paris you might ask? Indeed. The author [...]
NewSouth Books, based in Alabama, is publishing a new edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. As many know, Mr. Twain has been very much in the news lately. His Autobiography is a current bestseller (NYTimes bestseller list for 10 weeks now) and is earning well-deserved praise. Regrettably, now we must add another reason [...]
In January of 2011 NewSouth Books in Montgomery, Alabama decided to release a version of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn replacing the word “nigger” with “slave” 219 times. The idea to replace the word came from Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University at Montgomery, who approached the publisher in July 2010. The decision sparked a debate among educators [...]
NCAC wrote this letter expressing concern about the cancellation of the Flagler Palm Coast High School production of To Kill A Mockingbird. Superintendent Flagler County Public Schools 1769 East Moody Blvd. Bunnell FL 32110 mailto:[email protected] November 12, 2010 Dear Superintendent Valentine, We write to express concern about the cancellation of the Flagler Palm Coast High School production of [...]
The NCAC wrote this letter in response to a parent's challenge. Dr. Susan Watne Review Committee for Helena Public Schools Helena, Montana mailto:[email protected] Dear Dr. Watne and Members of the Review Committee for Helena Public Schools, We write concerning the challenge to Sherman Alexie’s acclaimed novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. We understand [...]
Suzanne Collins's young adult novel The Hunger Games is challenged in New Hampshire by a parent whose 11-year old said the book gave her nightmares. The parent has yet to file a formal complaint or read the book. Regardless, the Superintendent is gathering a committee to review the book while it remains in the classroom. A Texas school district in [...]
NCAC sent the following letter to Stockton School District in Missouri concerning the challenge to Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The novel was used during the 2009-2010 school year as the all-school read for grades 9-12, and challenged because the content did not reflect "community values."
An invitation to young adult novelist Ellen Hopkins to speak about her experiences as a writer was rescinded by the Superintendent of the Humble (Texas) Independent School District after some parents complained about the content of her books. NCAC coordinated a letter of protest with five other national organizations. After Hopkins was disinvited to Teen Lit Fest 2011, five other [...]
An invitation to young adult novelist Ellen Hopkins to speak about her experiences as a writer was rescinded by the Superintendent of the Humble (Texas) Independent School District after some parents complained about the content of her books. NCAC coordinated a letter of protest with five other national organizations.
The word “fuck” has caused quite a stir in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Its appearance - 45 times, according to parent and avid swear-word-counter, Kelli Smith - in young adult novel Shooting Star by Fredrick McKissack Jr. is reason enough for one parent to remove the book from school district libraries. Grudgingly, the Broken Arrow Board of Education will keep the [...]
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 [...]
After a couple months of debate, the Franklin Township School Board in Indiana has ruled to retain Song of Solomon in its AP English classes!
We were gratified to learn of a kind mention last week from librarian Lizzy Burns in her thoughtful blog A CHAIR, A FIREPLACE & A TEA COZY concerning one example of the kind of work the NCAC does every day. You can find the original post here. The latest wrinkle in the story: Revolutionary Voices has been pulled from not [...]
As we reported in our latest edition of Censorship News, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon was recently removed from an Indiana high school’s AP English class on April 28 after a parent and school board members complained about its content. Two days later, the book was returned to the class when a committee of educators and parents [...]
As we reported in our latest edition of Censorship News, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon was recently removed from an Indiana high school’s AP English class on April 28 after a parent and school board members complained about its content. Two days later, the book was returned to the class when a committee of educators and parents ruled in favor of keeping the book. On June 21, the Franklin Township school board will hear an appeal of the committee’s decision.
The Rancocas Valley School Board in Mt. Holly, New Jersey, chose to remove one of the three challenged books at its meeting on May 4. Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology and two other books were challenged because they appear on a list of books on GLBTQ themes created by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN). The objectors [...]
The Culpeper County, VA school system received national media attention three weeks ago when school officials said that The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank would no longer be taught in middle school classrooms. A parent had contacted the school board because the uncensored version of the diary, used in an eighth grade English class, [...]
NCAC, with a little help from our friends, sent a letter urging Sugarloaf School in Summerland Key, FL, to retain Judy Blume's Forever in the school library after the parents of one student objected to the book's sexual content. The parents have requested its removal from the library claiming that Forever contains “a distorted view of sex, promiscuity, and is [...]
In the children’s book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, the title character answers the question of the title with, “I see a red bird looking at me.” For one member of the elected Texas Board of Education, the bird’s color could have been confirmation of her suspicion that the picture book promoted Communism. But then again, Board [...]
Robert Frost Elementary in Washington State canceled the touring theatre-troupe Studio East's production of the Emperor's New Clothes and demanded several edits to Snow White and the Black Forest due to fears that students would imitate the bad behavior of some of the characters. The plays, according to the school, violate its Human Dignity Policy. NCAC, in collaboration with several [...]
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 [...]
