With the recent release of the film adaptation of Lois Lowry’s 1993 young adult novel The Giver, free speech groups are bracing for a resurgence of challenges to one of the most frequently targeted books of the 1990s. Last week…
Author: Maren Williams
Pennsylvania School Board Rescinds Ban of The Handmaid’s Tale
A Pennsylvania school board, which last month voted to ban Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as a high school summer reading book, has reversed that decision at its subsequent meeting, the National Coalition Against Censorship has learned. As in so…
Parents Fume Over Smoking Scarecrow
First it was Santa Claus, then Bone. Now some parents are calling for the censorship of a new book by British children’s author Julia Donaldson because it shows a scarecrow smoking a cigar. Even though The Scarecrows’ Wedding portrays smoking…
Singapore: Northstar’s Wedding Passes Muster Because Another Character Objects
Everyone knows by now that the wedding of gay Archie character Kevin Keller is too hot for Singapore’s Media Development Authority, which recently banned retailers from importing Archie: The Married Life 3 because it was “not in line with social…
Looking for Alaska Retained in Waukesha, Two More Books Challenged
We have another good news/bad news situation in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where a school district review committee last week unanimously rejected a parental challenge to John Green’s Looking for Alaska. But the challengers plan to appeal that decision to the full…
Alabama Speak Challenge Nipped in the Bud
A challenge to Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak at a high school in Albertville, Alabama was quickly resolved earlier this month when the principal responded that it was one of many books on a reading list, and individual students or their…
Cape Henlopen Board Eliminates Entire Reading List in Dispute Over Cameron Post
In a disheartening turn of events, the Cape Henlopen School Board in Delaware last week eliminated an entire summer reading list for incoming high school freshmen amidst confusion over how to handle a challenge to one book. The board had…
North Carolina Woman Continues Fight to Ban Absolutely True Diary
Since we last checked in with Brunswick County, North Carolina, where local resident Frances Wood is on a one-woman crusade to have Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian banned from Cedar Grove Middle School, there is…
Expert to School Board: Listen to Students on Cameron Post
Tonight, the Delaware school board that last month voted 6-1 to remove emily m. danforth’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post from a high school reading list may reconsider their hasty action, which was not in line with district policy on…
Superintendent Admits Policy Ignored in Little Brother Case
Well over a month after a high school principal in Pensacola, Florida cancelled a summer reading program rather than allow students to read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, we finally heard this week from that principal’s boss, Escambia County School District…