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…
Category: Education
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…
Tales From the Code: Whatever Happened to the Amazing Amazon–Wonder Woman Bound by Censorship
The Comics Authority changed the face of comics forever. People are aware how horror comics were virtually abolished, romance comics were toned down, and jungle princesses forced to fade into the background, but they may be unaware how the CCA affected…
Be Counted: How Your Membership Makes A Difference
Are you a current member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund? If you’ve contributed your member dues in 2012, we thank you. If you haven’t renewed or have yet to join, we’re asking you to please Be Counted and…
CBLDF Defends Stephen King’s DIFFERENT SEASONS in California School System
Stephen King’s collection of novellas, Different Seasons, has been challenged in the Rocklin, California, Unified School District after a parent complained about a graphic rape scene in “Apt Pupil.” CBLDF has joined the Kids Right to Read Project to defend…