The season of book challenges and bans continues for CBLDF, the Kids’ Right to Read Project, and allied groups, which yesterday issued a letter in defense of two books targeted for removal from 9th and 10th grade classrooms in Springfield,…
Category: Education
The Gaiman Foundation Contributes $60,000 to CBLDF for Education Program
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is grateful to acknowledge the generosity of the Gaiman Foundation, who today contributed $60,000 to advance the organization’s growing education program. After more than a decade of service, Neil Gaiman retired from the CBLDF’s…
Know Your Comics Censorship History!
The history of comics censorship is a sordid saga of misguided censors, self-imposed silence, criminal prosecutions, and suppression of free expression that led to the obliteration of thousands of careers, more than a few publishers, and even an entire country’s…
Utah Mom Sues to Return Book to Library Shelves
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…
A Librarian’s Thoughts on Protecting Intellectual Freedom
Last weekend, CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein attended the annual conference for the New York Library Association. Guest blogger Arthur Friedman attended the conference and shared his thoughts on the role of librarians in protecting intellectual freedom: Saratoga Springs, New…
NC Parents Fight for Children’s Right to Read
Books and graphic novels are persistently banned in schools and libraries across the country due to complaints from fundamentalist groups and overbearing parents who feel it their responsibility to suppress access to legal speech they find objectionable. A group of…
CBLDF Wants Your Voice!
Are you an enthusiastic fan of manga and ready to have your say? Are you a devoted fan of comics with a talent for writing and an opinion about your right to read? Are you an educator or librarian who…
KPFA’s Project Censored Talks Banned Books
As we were wandering about the interwebs this morning, we came across a pretty amazing recording from Banned Books Week. Barbara Jones, who heads up ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, joined Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against…
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…
A History of Censorship, Halloween Edition — My Ears Could Hear the War but the Censors Wouldn’t Let Me Read It
On October 30, 1938, Americans believed that Martians had invaded the planet Earth because of realistic broadcast produced by Orson Welles’s Mercury Theater of the Mind. And while that broadcast created havoc and disarray, it was still considered protected free…