Keiji Nakazawa’s internationally renowned manga Barefoot Gen, which depicts wartime atrocities from the perspective of the seven-year-old protagonist, has been pulled from primary and middle school libraries in the Japanese city of Matsue. Citing “portions that warrant consideration as appropriate…
Category: Education
Youth Voices Important in Fight for Free Speech
Recent attempts to ban Marjane Satrapi’s Perseoplis and Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower have been met with vocal opposition. Central to these protests are students themselves, and their vociferous protests and savvy with social media helped prevent…
CBLDF’s Comic Market Speech On Manga Freedom
Last weekend, CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein traveled to Tokyo for the Manga Freedom Speaking Tour, a series of presentations and meetings about free expression issues facing manga and how fans in the United States and Japan can band together…
Author Responds to Attempts to Ban The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Recently, two attempts have been made to remove Stephen Chbosky’s acclaimed The Perks of Being a Wallflower from schools. This is nothing new for the novel, which has made ALA’s most challenged books list several times. The National Coalition Against…
CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein to Visit Tokyo for Manga Freedom Speaking Tour
This weekend, CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein will literally travel to the other side of the world — to Tokyo, Japan — for a series of lectures and meetings on manga and free expression, hosted by Comic Market (Comiket), Comitia,…
Obscenity Case Files: Memoirs v. Massachusetts
In 1966, eleven years after the decision in Roth v. United States held that obscenity was not protected by the First Amendment and attempted to define obscene speech, came the landmark case of Memoirs v. Massachusetts. This case is about…
CBLDF Joins Defense of The Bluest Eye and Speak
This week, CBLDF-sponsored Kids’ Right to Read Project sent two letters on behalf of challenged books: One defends the use of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in schools in Colorado, and the second defends Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, which is…
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Removed From Queens Reading List
Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which CBLDF has defended from challenges in the past, was apparently removed from a sixth-grade reading list in Queens, New York, earlier this week after complaints from parents. Unfortunately the…
Using Graphic Novels in Education: American Born Chinese
Welcome to Using Graphic Novels in Education, an ongoing feature from CBLDF that is designed to allay confusion around the content of banned books and to help parents and teachers raise readers. In this column, we examine books that have been…
Jennifer L. Holm and Meryl Jaffe on RAISING A READER
During SDCC, CBLDF Board Member Jennifer L. Holm (Babymouse) and Raising a Reader writer Meryl Jaffe sat down with GeekRoom’s Tom Misuraca to talk about CBLDF’s new resource and how comics can be used to inspire kids to read. Jaffe’s…