Earlier this year Patricia Polacco’s picture book In Our Mothers’ House, which depicts a happy and racially mixed family headed by two lesbians, was placed under restricted access in a Davis, Utah, School District elementary library. The book was segregated…
Author: Maren Williams
Challenge to UNCLE BOBBY’S WEDDING Rejected in Missouri
The frequently-challenged children’s picture book Uncle Bobby’s Wedding has weathered another confrontation, this time in the St. Louis suburb of Brentwood, Missouri. Last week, the Brentwood Public Library Board of Trustees unanimously voted to leave the book in the children’s…
Library Director Responds to Seattle Manga Challenge
Yesterday we told you about Seattle area resident Travis de Nevers, who asked the King County Library System to change its circulation policies for minors after his unsupervised 10-year-old niece checked out the yaoi manga Hero-Heel 2. In response to…
Seattle Area Resident Shocked at Yaoi Manga, Asks Library to Revise Circulation Policy
Here’s a PSA on behalf of public librarians everywhere: If you would not drop your children off at a full-service bookstore with a credit card and tell them to go wild, then you should not send them into the library…
NCAC Interviews SIDESCROLLERS Creator Matt Loux
The National Coalition Against Censorship’s blog has a new interview with Matt Loux, whose graphic novel SideScrollers was recently removed from an Enfield, Connecticut, high school’s summer reading list after one resident complained of profanity and sexual references. CBLDF and…
Otaku: Japan’s Favorite Scapegoat — and Tourist Draw
Japan has long had a checkered relationship with its subculture of otaku, a word whose nuances cannot easily be translated to English but which more or less means “geeks whose hobbies border on the fanatic” (Ito). More often than not,…
Virtual Read-Out: KING & KING
Here’s another selection from the Banned Books Week Virtual Read-Out, an officially sponsored YouTube channel that compiles videos of people reading their favorite banned and challenged literature. In this one, college student Rachel reads an excerpt from King & King…
LGBT Graphic Novels Face Frequent Challenges
Regular CBLDF readers are probably already aware that comics and graphic novels are frequently challenged or banned for content that would pass without comment in an all-text novel. Would-be censors, often clinging to the notion that any book with lots…
U.S. National Archives Holdings Provide New Insight Into 1954 Anti-Comics Hearings
Happy National Comic Book Day! In honor of the occasion, the U.S. National Archives shared some wonderful items from their collection on their Facebook page. All became federal records in 1954, when they were presented to a Senate subcommittee which…
Kansas Sculpture Targeted in Grand Jury Investigation Reveals Pattern of Bullying Businesses
A sculpture depicting a partially-clothed woman snapping a picture of herself in an Overland Park, Kansas arboretum is drawing accusations from one local resident of “glorifying sexting,” and a petition against the work has now garnered enough signatures to trigger…