Do you have an Amazon habit? Now your purchases from the retail giant can benefit CBLDF! We’re now part of AmazonSmile, a program that gives 0.5% of the purchase price for items you’d buy anyway to eligible charities like CBLDF.…
Author: Maren Williams
Speak at 15: Laurie Halse Anderson Talks Teens, Resilience Literature, and Censorship
With Laurie Halse Anderson’s frequently-challenged YA novel Speak reaching its 15th anniversary this year, the author is marking the occasion with a campaign called #Speak4RAINN15 which aims to raise $30,000 for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Recently she…
The Bluest Eye Removed From Oklahoma High School Library Pending Review
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, which yesterday made the list of the top 10 most frequently banned and challenged books of 2013, is facing yet another challenge in Durant, Oklahoma. Parent Michelle Williams heard about the book via social media,…
Jefferson Center Calls Out Free Speech Violations With 2014 Muzzle Awards
It’s time once again for the Muzzle Awards, presented annually by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression to “recognize” individuals or organizations that have committed egregious violations against free speech in the past year. This year…
Researchers Analyze Syrian Political Cartoons on Facebook
As we’ve seen many times over, political cartoons play an important role in fomenting rebellion against repressive governments. Because it’s often difficult or impossible to distribute them through traditional print media in their own countries, many cartoonists are now taking…
Tilley to Present at C2E2, Holy Cross College Arts Day
Heads up! CBLDF fave Carol Tilley, the University of Illinois professor and researcher who last year proved that anti-comics crusader Fredric Wertham fabricated evidence for his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent, has a couple of upcoming appearances that may…
College of Charleston Student Valiantly Attempts to Reason With Lawmakers on Fun Home
We’re still waiting to find out how the South Carolina Senate will handle the House-approved budget which cuts funds from two public colleges for using LGBT-themed books, including Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, in freshman reading programs. In the meantime, we…
Reddit’s r/Books Pranks Users With April Fools’ Day Book Ban
When we heard on Tuesday that Reddit’s r/Books group was banning discussions of certain popular books, we knew better than to raise the alarm right away. The ban went into effect on April 1, after all, even though it was…
First Salvos in the Culture Wars: Advancing American Art and the Comics Backlash
This week, we came across a very interesting art exhibit that recreates an exhibit that was censored in the late 1940s, around the same time that the backlash against comics was gathering steam in the U.S. Looking into the saga…
Barefoot Gen Reportedly Returned to Izumisano School Libraries
We’re slowly getting more details on last week’s news that Keiji Nakazawa’s manga Barefoot Gen had been banned from yet another Japanese school district. According to major sources including Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun, Izumisano City officials planned to return…