Wow. As I write this, over 1900 people have signed the online petition asking Scholastic to include Lauren Myracle’s new book Luv Ya Bunches in their school Book Fairs. Scholastic has asserted that they are not censoring the book, but are carrying it in their Book Clubs. That is true, as the original School Library […]
I posted Friday about Scholastic’s refusal to include Lauren Myracle’s new book Luv Ya Bunches in their school Book Fairs after she refused to change one character’s lesbian moms into a mom and a dad. Here’s a video of Myracle talking about the book. As you can see, the book is hardly “about” lesbian moms,
[Updated: 10/24, 10:40 a.m. ET: Change.org has posted an action alert about this, complete with an easy automated message you can send to Scholastic.] Most of us with young children in public school know about Scholastic Book Fairs. Many of us remember them from our own childhoods. Now comes news that Scholastic has banned a
For the third year in a row, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three, about two male penguins who care for an orphaned egg and raise a chick, tops the American Library Association’s (ALA) Top Ten list of the Most Frequently Challenged Books. This despite the fact that the book is based on
The guinea pigs have had the spotlight this year, as picture book Uncle Bobby’s Wedding has faced several attempted challenges from library patrons who wanted to remove or reshelve it. The penguins of And Tango Makes Three are not out of danger yet, however, as a school board meeting in Ankeny, Iowa made clear. Cindy
Maurice Sendak, author of beloved children’s classics such as Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, has just come out. He revealed this in an interview with the New York Times in honor of his 80th birthday, which will be celebrated Monday by a benefit in Manhattan. Sendak has kept his sexuality
A patron at Douglas County Libraries in Colorado has submitted the first known challenge to Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, a children’s book by Massachusetts author Sarah Brannen that features two gay guinea pigs. In an e-mail to library director James LaRue on June 26, Parker, Colo., resident Anita Gohde formally asked that the book be removed
Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, the children’s book about a young guinea pig named Chloe and her uncle who marries his boyfriend, has received its first challenge. A patron at Douglas County Libraries in Colorado asked that the book either be removed from the shelves, placed in a special area, or labeled “some material may be inappropriate
The American Library Association (ALA) is sponsoring their 14th annual Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read, September 24-October 1, to remind Americans not to take intellectual freedom for granted. In observance of Banned Books Week, the ALA publishes a list of the most challenged books and authors of the previous year. A challenge
