--UPDATE-- Last night the board voted 6-1 to keep the book. They will be instating new policies that will hopefully balance parental concerns with students rights and the professional judgments of teachers. --------------------------------------------- The students, teachers, parents and citizens on the ground in Glen Ellyn have been working hard to spread the word about tonight's board vote there to (hopefully) [...]
NCAC's Kids’ Right to Read Project (KRRP) and its allies sent a letter to Glen Ellyn District 41 school board members today, urging them to reverse the district’s ban on Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Simon & Schuster) in middle school classroom libraries. The board is set to reconsider the ban at a June 10 meeting. [...]
Librotraficantes and their allies are dancing over the legislative grave of Texas HB1938, which sought to limit which courses university students could take to fulfill state history requirements. After impressive advocacy efforts on the part of Tony Diaz and Los Librotraficantes, the bill is indefinitely stalled in the Calendars committee. HB1938 and its Senate counterpart, SB1128, were the more subtle [...]
In honor of National Teachers Appreciation Day, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has honored Matt Beck, a school counselor in Erie, Illinois, with its 2013 Educator of the Year Award. Matt showed impressive courage and resolve in the face of censorship of LGBTQ materials, including Todd Parr's The Family Book, in his school in Erie in the [...]
Right now the Texas state legislature is considering a bill that would require college students to take the equivalent of two semesters of "courses providing a comprehensive survey in American History" in order to graduate. One of the two semesters could be Texan History. The new bill is evidently a "reinforcement" of a 1971 law mandating students take six hours of [...]
Logan Middle School student Jared Marcum took a trip to the courthouse after a confrontation over his t-shirt last week. The t-shirt boasted the National Rifle Association's logo and the words "Know Your Rights" over an image of a hunting rifle. The student was approached by a teacher in the middle of the school day who apparently asked him to [...]
Khury Petersen-Smith of SocialistWorker.org caught up with Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi to talk about the shady restrictions being placed on the teaching of her book in Chicago. Again, Satrapi showed her insight and savvy and aptly expressed the utter confusion and dismay we are all feeling: What is so horrible in my book that you need guidance? Am I inviting people to [...]
Last week, the best-selling graphic novel "Persepolis" was removed from Chicago's middle and high school reading lists. This week, a spokeswoman for the school system has claimed that the word "censorship" was inappropriate, as teachers could still assign the book so long as they were willing to sit through a class on how to teach such "sensitive material". These extra classes appear designed [...]
In an interview with PBS station WTTW Chicago last night, Barbara Jones, Executive Director of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, of the Chicago Teachers Union and two Lane Tech Seniors spoke about the removal of Persepolis from classrooms in Chicago Public Schools. You can watch the interview here, but this particular moment stood out as a perfect response to anyone who might [...]
The school board in Prosser, WA may again hear comments from a high school social studies teacher who has made it his mission to ban two library books. A reconsideration committee in the district already voted to keep A Child Called "It" or The Popularity Papers in school libraries.
In Our Mothers' House, a book about an adoptive family with two moms will no longer be hidden behind a counter at school libraries in Davis County, Utah. Following a lawsuit by the ACLU, the district reconsidered its restrictions on the book. KRRP wrote a letter defending the book in June of 2012.
Once more The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has faced censorship in author and YFEP Film Contest Judge Sherman Alexie's home state. A panel of educators, administrators, parents and media specialists voted to retain the book in Yakima, WA, where it is being read by 10th grade students.
Speaking of stories straight out of the 1950s playbook, here's one from right after New Years: A group in Southington, CT decided to collect and destroy violent video games, bribing incentivizing resident participation with a $25 gift certificate for other forms of happy-sunny family fun, like a trip to a water park. In a somewhat contradictory statement, the group stated that "there is ample [...]
In a censorship story that feels dredged from a mid-century time capsule, a High School in Utah will allow the musical All Shook Up to be performed, but has removed a "questionable song." It's unclear what song has been removed from the play, which is in fact a rewriting of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. About that: evidently in addition to the [...]
NCAC reached out quickly and effectively on a challenge to Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle, a summer reading assignment for 9th graders in the Traverse City school district. A school board reconsideration committee had already supported removing the book, but the school board ultimately voted 4-3 to retain the book.
Several works being taught in AP English classes in Katy, TX were removed or replacafter complaints. Fight Club by Chuck Palaniuk, A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley and Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants" were among the objectionable titles.
NCAC and partner organizations sent a letter voicing our concerns over a push to remove books from classrooms in the Springfield School District in Massachusetts. Among those objected to are Sherman Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and The Other Wes Moore.
NCAC and nine partner organizations came together on a Kids' Right to Read Project letter to the Guilford School District in Greensboro, NC. The letter advised the district to stay strong and continue to follow its policies in the face of recent complaints over "The Handmaid's Tale", "Cat's Cradle" and other texts used in AP English classes. Parents in the district have complained that the texts "denigrate Christianity."
New York City may have been on pause for a bit after superstorm Sandy, but censorship attempts were certainly not taking a break. The mother of an 8th grader at Bromley East Charter School in Brighton, Colorado evidently lodged a complaint to the school's administration and to the media about one of the most frequently taught short stories of all [...]
The Rocklin School District in California reversed an earlier decision to remove Stephen King's "Different Seasons", a short story collection which contains "Shawshank Redemption" and "Apt Pupil" among others. NCAC sent a letter to the district urging them to keep the book.
Great news! Bastard out of Carolina and Angels in America will be taught in Fremont to all those who wish to learn, notwithstanding the Fremont Unified School District's decision to ban the books from its English curriculum. Thanks to the efforts of Rev. Jeremy Nickel of the Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation, the class will begin tonight and continue throughout the school year. [...]
Kids' Right to Read was joined by the American Library Association in defense of Stephen King's Different Seasons which has been challenged in a school library in Rocklin, CA. A parent objected to a rape scene in the novella "Apt Pupil" and wants the book removed.
Kids' Right to Read responded to the removal of Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate from classrooms in Nampa School District in Idaho. Informal complaints led the school to ban the book, despite the fact alternative assignments were offered and no formal process had been followed.
Score one for the robots freedom to read supporters! A seven-person committee in the Hardin Valley Academy, in Knox County, TN has decided that Daniel H. Wilson's "Robopocalypse" should stay in the school's curriculum. The best-selling science fiction book about a hostile robot takeover was selected as the STEM Academy's summer read to keep students engaged in a light but [...]
Last week, in the midst of the media derecho catapulting the celebration of Banned Books Week, we came upon this article in the Chicago Tribune written by author James Klise. Klise manages a high school library in Chicago and is the author of Love Drugged, which Booklist called “An excellent novel for classroom and GSA discussion."Love Drugged was also an ALA Stonewall Honor Book in 2011 [...]
The ACLU of Texas published their 16th annual Banned Books Report for the occasion of Banned Books Week this week and it both looks amazing and has great content. In addition to detailed information about books that were challenged and banned across the state in 2012, the report has a great interview with writer and activist Tony Diaz. Diaz joined NCAC and [...]
Board members in East Penn high school recognized that voting to remove Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep and Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test without a formal review would have constitutional implications. The Kids' Right to Read Project pointed out this fact in a letter to the board after a single board member motioned to axe the books, mislabeling them "pornographic."
The Kids' Right to Read Project tackled two separate -- but similar -- challenges to books featured on summer reading lists: Sidescrollers, a graphic novel by Matt Loux, was removed in Enfield, CT; in Emmaus, PA, a board member has motioned to remove Prep and Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test from the list. No official parental complaint was filed in either case.
Though no formal complaint had been filed and despite the fact that both titles had already been upheld by a reconsideration committee in previous years, a Board Member in East Penn School District in Emmaus, PA, motioned to nix Prep and Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test from the district's summer reading lists.
NCAC weighed in on the controversy surrounding Prague High School Valedicatorian Kaitlin Nootbaar's use of the word "hell" in her gradution speech. In a letter to the Superindendent of the Oklahoma School District, NCAC and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), urged the district to give Nootbaar the diploma she rightfully earned.
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 [...]
The Frederick County Board of Education decided to retain the textbook Social Studies Alive! Our Community and Beyond, which had come under challenge after parents objected to "left-leaning" or "socialist" statements in the text. The Kids' Right to Read Project issued a letter urging the Board not to remove the book because of objections to its content.
The Kids' Right to Read Project joined with partner organizations in writing a letter to the Fremont, CA School Board, warning against another rejection of the book Bastard Out of Carolina without sound pedagogical reasons. KRRP also wrote a letter in 2011 about the board's rejection of Tony Kushner's pulitzer-prize winning play Angels in America.
The effort in New York State to combat bullying in schools is "deeply flawed", according to the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), which has urged New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo not to sign the recently passed S.7740/A.I0712 bill into law. In a letter sent after the announcement of the bill's passage, NCAC praised the goals of the bill but warned of language so vague and overbroad that it "will likely create more problems than it solves."
After a busy week working to fight back against book bans and challenges, we were thrilled to see some good news. A Tulsa school district recently heard a parent's challenge to the book Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford. The parent who challenged the book called the book "vulgar, vulgar, vulgar," objecting to its references to masturbation, pornography and an [...]
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.
Our joint letter opposing the massive censorship of Mexican American Studies in the Tucson Unified School District has a new signer: the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. The letter was launched in late Janurary and has now attracted well over 30 national and regional organizations dedicated to education and free speech.
We're happy to welcome two new national organizations to our joint statement against the censorship of Mexican-American Studies in the Tucson Unified School District: the National Association for Ethnic Studies and the National Association for Bilingual Education!
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, [...]
