A lawmaker in Maine is using her position of power to attack students’ intellectual freedom and restrict the books available to her son and his peers in public schools in the state. Amy Arata, elected in 2018 as a state…
Tag: challenged for: age-appropriate content
30 Years in The Dreaming
November 29th marked the 30th Anniversary of the debut of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. The original 75 issue run ended in March of 1996, but few characters in the comics world (especially outside of the superhero genre) have held on to…
Beartown Pulled from NC High School
After community outrage, the North Carolina Rockville County School Board pulled Beartown by Fredrick Backman from a 10th grade English honors class required reading list, blaming the teacher’s lack of pre-approval and experience for the error. Parents called the book…
Why Comics Are Banned
Every year, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) receives reports of book challenges from around the country–that is, a request from an individual or group for a book to be restricted or removed from a library or…
A Tale of Two Kitties (and Two Annes): The Censorship of Anne Frank
Author’s Note: Thanks to Carlotta at 360 Amsterdam and employees of the Anne Frank Fonds working at the Anne Frank House, who answered my many questions. All mistakes are the authors. “I live in a crazy time” –Anne Frank The…
District Policy Ignored in YA Book Ban
The principal at Fort King Middle School in Ocala, Florida may have pulled YA novel The Facts Speak for Themselves by Brock Cole from the library without following the official district book challenge policy. The initial report from Spectrum News…
Part-Time Indian Survives Wisconsin Challenge
Sherman Alexie’s bestselling YA novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has survived a committee review after a challenge at the Sauk Prairie High School in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin. The book is part of the 9th grade curriculum in…
Texas School Board Stands Ground on Sixth Grade Required Reading
The school board in Argyle, Texas, is standing their ground regarding two required reading titles despite a small number of parents asserting that the books are not age-appropriate and tackle tough concepts best discussed at home. The books in question, Andy Mulligan’s…
Florida Parents Blame Books for “What’s Wrong with Children Today”
Two parents in Nassau County, Florida, are not only calling for the ban of two popular teen books, Lauren Myracle’s TTYL and TTFN, from school libraries, but are also blaming the titles for “what’s wrong with children today.” According to Fox…
VA Parent Leads Summer Reading Censorship Campaign
The school year may be winding down for students across the United States, but upset parents in Chesterfield County, Virginia, have been hard at work the past few months in a successful campaign to have titles they call “pornographic,” “vile,”…