Each year, the week of March 6 brings us Will Eisner Week, “an annual celebration promoting graphic novels, literacy, free speech awareness, and the legacy of Will Eisner,” the father of the graphic novel. Will Eisner Week kicks off this…
Category: Education
THE POPULARITY PAPERS Stays in District Libraries
Last week, CBLDF and the Kids’ Right to Read Project defended two books in the Prosser, Washington, school district: A Child Called “It” and The Popularity Papers. At the time of reporting, the review board had elected to retain A…
YALSA Announces Great Graphic Novels for 2013
The Young Adult Library Services Association’s latest annual list of Great Graphic Novels is out! Books are nominated for inclusion on the list by members of YALSA, a division of the American Library Association, and then voted on by a…
UPDATED: CBLDF Defends Books in Washington School District
Earlier this week, the Kids’ Right to Read Project, which is sponsored by CBLDF, sent a letter to the Prosser School District outside Yakima, Washington, in defense of A Child Called “It” and The Popularity Papers. Both books had been…
College Paper Sparks Debate Over Social and Racial Commentary in Cartoons
On January 24th, the editorial board of the University of Wisconsin, Madison’s student newspaper, The Badger Herald, decided not to run artist Vincent Cheng’s “Ya Boi, Inc.” comic strip for that day. Cheng’s strip (shown above) depicts a middle-aged man…
Suspended Student Poet Allowed Back to School
We have a quick update on Courtni Webb, the San Francisco high school student who was suspended from school last month after a teacher found a poem that mentioned the Newtown shootings in her private notebook. According to a blog…
California Student Suspended for Newtown Poem
Remember the 16-year-old from New Jersey who was arrested last month after a teacher reported his notebook doodles of “what appeared to be weapons?” Now the same sort of hypervigilance on the part of school officials has caused another teen…
How You Can Report a Library Challenge to ALA
Like CBLDF, the American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom is a resource that librarians can call upon for help when facing a book challenge. The OIF maintains a confidential database of information about library challenges, which helps them identify…
Frequently Challenged Alexie Novel Stays on District Reading List
Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is no stranger to library and school challenges, and it survived another one this week in the author’s home state of Washington. The West Valley School District Instructional Materials Committee…
Utah School District Returns Book to Library Shelves
Thanks to a Utah mother and the ACLU of Utah, In Our Mothers’ House, a children’s book featuring a racially diverse family led by lesbian parents, is back in the Davis, Utah, elementary school library without restriction. Earlier this year,…