Banned Books Week starts this Sunday and runs through October 1, which means you still have time to plan your Banned Books Week event! Celebrate the freedom to read and this year’s theme of diversity with CBLDF resources, including our print and online publications!
CBLDF Banned Books Week Handbook
The CBLDF Banned Books Week Handbook is a free resource that gives you the scoop about what comics are banned, how to report and fight censorship, and how to make a celebration of Banned Books Week in your community! CBLDF’s Banned Books Week Handbook is an essential tool to assist librarians, educators, and retailers in planning their Banned Books Week celebrations, while also being a vital reference to help readers everywhere fight censorship. View or download the 2014 and 2015 editions here.
The 2016 edition of the CBLDF Banned Books Week Handbook is now available! View it here.
Raising A Reader: How Comics & Graphic Novels Can Help Your Kids Love to Read!
With more than 80,000 copies in print, Raising a Reader! How Comics & Graphic Novels Can Help Your Kids Love To Read! answers the questions parents and educators bring to using comics: What skills do graphic novels offer kids? How do you teach reading with a comics page? How do comics promote a love of reading? It’s an indispensable tool for showcasing the value of graphic novels, and chock full of reading suggestions and title recommendations to get kids engaged with this exciting medium! Check it out here.
CBLDF Defender
CBLDF Defender is our free quarterly news magazine coming to you from the front lines of the fight for free speech! You can find it at comic book stores across the nation, on comiXology, and right here at CBLDF.org! Each issue of CBLDF Defender will bring engaging creator interviews, detailed analysis of current censorship news, and in-depth features that tell the story of the people fighting for the freedom to read! Click through to check out CBLDF Defender!
Comic Book Club Handbook
Learn how to start and make the most of book clubs for comics and graphic novels with the Comic Book Club Handbook, a resource produced by Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in collaboration with Comic-Con International! Designed for librarians, retailers, and individuals alike, the Comic Book Club Handbook goes inside the how’s and why’s of creating a graphic novel book club. The handbook provides proven strategies for getting started, selecting books, engaging your community, managing discussions, and much more, including a helpful table of books to get you started!
This publication is the latest in the ongoing education collaboration between Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Comic-Con International, who co-produced the handbook with the assistance of Erwin Magbanua of the San Diego Public Library. The Comic Book Club Handbook is illustrated throughout by legendary cartoonist Rick Geary! Read it here.
Manga Book Club Handbook
The Manga Book Club Handbook is an invaluable resource, created in partnership with VIZ Media, that will help you start and make the most of book clubs for manga! The Manga Book Club Handbook lays out the basics of manga and provides the tools you need to start a book club for manga, including suggested readings to get you started!
Read a digital copy of the handbook here.
Download a PDF of the Manga Book Club Handbook here.
Hardcopies of the Manga Book Club Handbook are available in the CBLDF Rewards Zone here.
Working With Libraries! A Handbook For Comics Creators
Working With Libraries! provides comics creators with a valuable insider’s perspective on the library world and the systems librarians have to navigate to bring comics to their patrons. The handbook details the basics of public, school, and academic libraries, explains the collection development process, and offers suggestions for ways creators can collaborate with libraries in developing events and programs. View it here.
CBLDF Presents Manga: Introduction, Challenges, and Best Practices
Often, manga is challenged because of its foreign source — many of the people who want manga banned simply don’t understand it. CBLDF works to educate people about manga, and recently released CBLDF Presents Manga: Introduction, Challenges, and Best Practices, an authoritative yet accessible handbook designed to help librarians, educators, and parents navigate the vast and popular field of manga.
Made possible with a grant from the Gaiman Foundation and published by Dark Horse, CBLDF Presents Manga is a handbook designed to provide a concise and informed overview of manga — its history, genres, and issues. This educational work delves into the history of manga, its major demographic divisions, its most significant creators, and the challenges it has sometimes faced in North America. An expert panel of writers, including not only scholars of the medium but veterans of the manga industry itself — professionals who have worked from both the North American and Japanese sides of manga in publishing, editing, review, and library services. Edited by Melinda Beasi of Manga Bookshelf, CBLDF Presents Manga is written by Manga Bookshelf columnist Sean Gaffney, Ed Chavez of Vertical, Erica Friedman of Yuricon and ALC Publishing, Shaenon Garrity of Viz Media and Otaku USA, and Robin Brenner and Katherine Dacey of School Library Journal.
If your child or students are interested in manga and you want to learn more about the category, you can pick up a copy of CBLDF Presents Manga here!
This year, Banned Books Week celebrates diversity. According to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, more than half of all banned books are by authors of color, or contain events and issues concerning diverse communities. Why are so many diverse books banned? Banned Books Week is a great opportunity to engage your community in this discussion!
If you are hosting an event or Banned Books Week display, let us know about it! Register your event with Banned Books Week at http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/events and send an email to betsy.gomez@cbldf.org.
As you’re planning your events or developing your library and classroom curricula, be sure to check out these other valuable CBLDF resources:
- Using Graphic Novels in Education
- Adding Graphic Novels to Your Library or Classroom Collection
- CBLDF Discussion Guides
- CBLDF Banned Comics Case Studies
- Posters, shelf talkers, and more…
CBLDF is an official sponsor of Banned Books Week. Banned Books Week is also sponsored by American Booksellers for Free Expression, American Library Association, Association of American Publishers, Association of American University Presses, The Authors Guild, Dramatists Legal Defense Fund, Freedom to Read Foundation, National Council for Teachers of English, and People for the American Way Foundation. Contributors include American Society of Journalists and Authors, National Coalition Against Censorship, PEN America, and Project Censored. Banned Books Week is endorsed by the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.
CBLDF’s education program is made possible with the support of the Gaiman Foundation and CBLDF’s Corporate Members — ABRAMS, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, BOOM! Studios, comiXology, DCBS, Diamond Comic Distributors, Dark Horse Comics, DC Entertainment, IDW Publishing, Image Comics, Half Price Books, Oni Press, Penguin Random House, ReedPop, TFAW.com, Scholastic, SPX, Valiant, the Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation — and members like you. Thank you!
Help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work by visiting the Rewards Zone, making a donation, or becoming a member of CBLDF!