Earlier this week the theme for September’s Banned Books Week was announced following the ALA’s annual Most Frequently Challenged and Banned List, demonstrating the importance for censorship awareness. It’s as crucial this year as ever to plan events to educate, entertain, and shine a light on the multitude of attempts to ban books and comics that occur each year. Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a proud member of the Banned Books Week Coalition, has a plethora of resources from past years that can still help educators, librarians, booksellers, and advocates plan informative and fun Banned Books Week celebrations! Take a look at past Banned Books Week Handbooks, shelftalkers, posters, and more to get ideas for programming, tools for teaching, and quotes from creators that help illuminate the importance of Banned Books Week.

 

Read Banned Comics

Read Banned Comics is a free resource that delves into comics that are challenged, how to report and fight censorship, programming ideas, and more tips to make a celebration of Banned Books Week in your community! CBLDF is an official sponsor of Banned Books Week, and this year’s theme is Banning Books Silences Stories, a call to action for everyone to stand up against censorship. The annual celebration of the freedom to read will be observed in libraries, schools, bookstores, and other community settings across the nation and the world. Download the PDF of Read Banned Comics here or flip through the publication below!

To get more ideas, you can check out past years Banned Books Week Handbook – the information in them is helpful for programming ideas, and as well as tools and resources for the week.

CBLDF Posters and Shelf Talkers

First up, we have a poster adapting Raina Telgemeier’s amazing cover for the 2015 edition of the CBLDF Banned Books Week Handbook! We’re also delighted to offer a poster featuring characters from banned and challenged comics courtesy of Jonathan Hill and First Second Books. Finally, we have Jeff Smith’s Bone, waving a flag for the freedom to read!

Feel free to use these great posters in your Banned Books Week displays and to advertise your events celebrating the freedom to read! Click on the links below to download high-res versions of each:

• Raina Telgemeier CBLDF Banned Books Week Handbook 2015 poster, featuring Callie from Drama (8.5″ by 11″)
• Jonathan Hill multi-character poster, featuring banned and challenged comic book characters (11″ by 17″)
• Jeff Smith CBLDF Banned Books Week Handbook 2014 poster, featuring Bone (11″ by 17″)

We’re also delighted to offer shelf talkers for stores, libraries, and classrooms! Featuring “Fighting Words” about censorship from some of the biggest names in comics, you can use these shelf talkers to call attention to banned books, as part of your Banned Books Week displays, on bulletin boards, and more! Featuring quotes from Neil Gaiman, Jeff Smith, Marjane Satrapi, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Alison Bechdel, and Ariel Schrag, this who’s who of challenged creators will inspire your Banned Books Week celebration!

We have two formats: An 11″ by 17″ spread that features all of the quotes or a version that you can cut apart into individual blurbs to customize your shelves and displays. Click on the links below to dowload high-res versions of each:

• CBLDF Banned Books Week Shelf Talker Spread (11″ by 17″)
• CBLDF Banned Books Week Shelf Talker Blurbs

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.

Using Graphic Novels in Education

Using Graphic Novels in Education is an ongoing feature from CBLDF that is designed to allay confusion around the content of graphic novels and to help parents and teachers raise readers. In this column, we examine graphic novels, including those that have been targeted by censors, and provide teaching and discussion suggestions for the use of such books in classrooms. Check out the columns here.

Adding Graphic Novels to Your Library or Classroom Collection

This ongoing feature from CBLDF provides specific resources for librarians and educators who may need to justify and defend the inclusion of the book in library and classroom collections. Each column provides specific information about a book, including a summary of challenges it has faced, reviews, praise, awards and other recognitions, and additional CBLDF resources that educators and librarians can provide to their administrators when they want to add the book to their collections. Check out the series here.

CBLDF Discussion Guides

Given their visual nature, comics are easy targets for would-be censors. CBLDF’s Discussion Guides are tools that can be used to lead conversations about challenged graphic novels and to help allay misconceptions about comics. Click through to download the guides.

CBLDF Banned Comics Case Studies

Collecting case studies about specific comics that have been challenged or banned, this series has details on which comics were attacked, why, and what CBLDF did to help defend them. Read all about it here.

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 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.