As 2016 comes to a close, we look back on our 10 most-read stories of the past year… Pearls Before Swine Strip Pulled for ISIS Reference On July 27, the award-winning syndicated strip published daily in more than 750 newspapers nationwide…
Tag: texas
Wolf Boys Banned from Texas Prisons
Schools and libraries in Texas aren’t the only facilities that suffer from book bans. Dan Slater’s new non-fiction work Wolf Boys has joined the list of 15,000 books banned within the state’s prison systems. Wolf Boys: Two American Teenagers and Mexico’s Most…
Author Shares Cautionary Tale of Censorship for Banned Books Week
Author Gayle Pitman has seen first-hand how far censors will go to have a book pulled from their community after her own book, This Day in June, became a target in Hood County, Texas. Pitman shares her story and a…
Texas School Board Stands Ground on Sixth Grade Required Reading
The school board in Argyle, Texas, is standing their ground regarding two required reading titles despite a small number of parents asserting that the books are not age-appropriate and tackle tough concepts best discussed at home. The books in question, Andy Mulligan’s…
Round Rock Schools Issue Statement on Author Disinvitation
The school district in Round Rock, Texas has issued an evasive response to author Phil Bildner’s allegation that his disinvitation from eight schools he had been slated to visit there this fall was due to his previous recommendation that students…
Texas School District Cancels Author’s Visit After Transgender Book Recommendation
The Round Rock Independent School District in Texas has uninvited author Phil Bildner from all eight schools he was scheduled to visit there this fall, apparently because he recommended a book featuring a transgender protagonist when he visited the district…
Censorship Battles Take a Toll on Educators
Virtually every public school district across the country has a policy on how challenges to materials should be handled. One of the many benefits of observing these policies is that they help to shield the districts’ own employees — teachers…
Book Challenge Debates Often Fuelled by Willful Ignorance
Last year, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David K. Shipler’s book The Working Poor: Invisible in America was one of seven that were briefly suspended en masse from the school district curriculum in the affluent Dallas enclave of Highland Park. Although the…
TX Librarian Takes Student Advice When Building School Library
Librarians face a unique set of challenges that often puts them in the perceived role of being responsible for the materials that their patrons consume, even more so when those patrons are children and the library is at a school.…
VICTORY in TX: LGBTQ Books Remain in Hood County Library
Following a packed community forum where residents of Hood County, Texas spoke both for and against two LGBTQ-themed children’s books in the local public library, county commissioners decided yesterday that My Princess Boy and This Day In June will remain…