Category: Community

CBLDF Looking for Editorial Intern!

CBLDF is looking for an editorial intern! Help us perform our important education work and gain hands-on experience with the program and communications side of our dynamic, influential non-profit organization. Duties include: copyediting, proofreading, transcription, and copy writing. If you have an…

Virginia Lawmaker Wants Librarians Fired for Summer Reading Lists

A debate over summer reading books in Virginia’s Chesterfield County Public Schools intensified last week when a state senator characterized the books as “trash” and said the school librarians who recommended them should be fired. The titles that have raised…

How Smile Transformed the Comics Industry

Seemingly overnight, semi-autobiographical graphic novels for children have become a hit genre, dominating New York Times bestseller lists, winning industry awards, and garnering significant praise and accolades. Leading the way is Raina Telgemeier, whose fun, incredibly relatable, and heartfelt graphic novels…

Independence Day Around the World

As we celebrate Independence Day, we also celebrate the independent spirit of our country’s founders, men and women who fought against an oppressive regime and eventually gave us the law that CBLDF works to protect: the First Amendment. Freedom of expression…

Two Graphic Novels on Toronto Public Library’s Annual Challenged Books Report

Toronto Public Library recently released their yearly Reconsideration of Materials Summary, recapping the books and movies challenged in one of Canada’s largest library systems, and two graphic novels were among the books challenged. Similar to the American Library Association’s yearly…

How the Comics Code Laid the Foundation for LGBTQ Comix

Along with giving rise to some of the industry’s greatest creators and laying the foundation for what has become the independent comics scene today, the undergrounds also fostered the development of the queer comix movement — a wholly new and unique space where LGBTQ youth could, for once, express themselves and speak out freely about social issues directly impacting the LGBTQ community.

Join CBLDF in Orlando this Weekend for ALA Annual!

Join CBLDF in Orlando this weekend, June 24 – 28 for the American Library Association’s Annual Conference and Exhibition! We’ll be at booth 509 with the debut of our Manga Book Club Handbook; the sixth issue of CBLDF Defender, our…

Now Available: CBLDF Defender #6!

CBLDF Defender is our free quarterly news magazine coming to you from the front lines of the fight for free speech, and the sixth issue is now available! You can find it at comic book stores across the nation, on comiXology, and right here at CBLDF.org!…

Author Urges Students to Challenge Book Bans

In a recent editorial piece on The Huffington Post, author and high school teacher Peter Brown Hoffmeister discusses the hot topic of banning books and explores the dangerous implications and imminent pitfalls of censoring the materials teenagers have access to…

1990s Attempts to Censor Rap Echo 1950s Attacks on Comics

With every new generation, there is a new form of media that becomes both actively embraced by American youth, as well as socially stigmatized and branded as “low class,” “obscene,” and “dangerous” by the morality police (aka grown ups). It…