My favorite Banned Book Week quote so far: When we ban a book about a kid on the outside, we’re taking a step toward banning the kid. —Chris Crutcher, whose books have several times landed him on the American Library Association’s list of Top Ten Most Challenged Books (sometimes for homosexual content). He was speaking […]
I first had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Brannen when her children’s book Uncle Bobby’s Wedding launched early last year. I wrote about the right wing’s first attack on the book, which involved shameless plagiarism of my earlier piece by ultra-conservative writer Brent Bozell III at Town Hall. I then followed the story as the
Continuing my posts in honor of Banned Books Week. This is a slightly updated version of a piece I wrote for Bay Windows during last year’s Banned Books Week. If you haven’t yet read it, try to guess which children’s book featuring rabbits was challenged in 1959 for promoting (gasp!) interracial marriage. And come back
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
(Here’s a longer piece on Banned Books Week I wrote for Bay Windows, October 1, 2008. Seemed a good way to end the week.) This week marks the 27th annual Banned Books Week, the American Library Association’s celebration of the freedom to read. LGBT-inclusive children’s books have long been on the ALA’s list of works
Helen and I celebrate a Banned Books Week full of fur and feathers. We discuss several LGBT-inclusive children’s books as well as an earlier work that was banned for supposedly promoting interracial marriage. We also point out the opportunity parents are missing by avoiding difficult topics with their children, and explain how we are helping
It’s Banned Books Week once again, the American Library Association’s annual celebration of the freedom to read. Each year, the ALA tracks the books that have received an official challenge, “a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.” Judith F. Krug, director of
Because the financial bailout isn’t the only thing happening this week: Ten-year-old Kira Findling of Sebastopol, California, wrote “Please Let My Moms Be Married,” a moving plea to vote no on Prop. 8, for the Press Democrat newspaper. A new report by the nonpartisan Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York concludes that gay
[Update: Sunday, 9/14, 11:30 a.m. Eastern: Michael Willhoite, author of Daddy’s Roommate (discussed below), has responded in the Huffington Post to Palin’s actions.] I’ve been quiet so far on the issue of Sarah Palin and the possibility that she tried to censor books in the Wasilla, Alaska Public Library. As far as I can tell,
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
