An Illinois school district canceled an author’s visit to an elementary school to talk about her new book on the childhoods of 16 famous activists (among them Martin Luther King, Jr. and Alexander Hamilton), because a parent complained that one of the activists included was Harvey Milk, says the author.
This week is Banned Books Week, the annual event from the American Library Association (ALA) honoring the freedom to read! Half of the books in the ALA’s latest Top Ten Most Challenged Books list are there because someone objected to their LGBTQ content—underscoring how much work is yet to be done on the path to equity and justice. Here are some ways you can support Banned Books Week and the authors behind books that have faced challenges!
Alabama Public Television is refusing to show an episode of the beloved show Arthur on PBS Kids because it depicts two male characters getting married. Contact them to let them know how you feel!
A picture book about LGBTQ-rights hero Harvey Milk is gaining support among parents and others after some parents in Hanover County, Virginia, objected to it being read in a second-grade classroom. The teacher had read the book after one child in the class was called “gay” in a negative way.
A Maryland middle school musical was cancelled just two weeks from its first performance. School officials say it is because of profanity in the script, but others say it is because one of the characters has gay dads.
A majority of titles in the American Library Association’s (ALA’s) latest annual list of the Top 11 Most Challenged Books were challenged or banned because of their LGBTQ content. Two of the books were also burned.
Today marks the start of Banned Books Week, the annual event from the American Library Association (ALA) celebrating the freedom to read. Half of the books in the ALA’s latest Top Ten Most Challenged Books list contain LGBTQ content—to me, that’s a shopping list.
A group of pastors in Maine has failed in its efforts to remove books they feel “promote homosexuality” and are “risque and immodest” from a local library display set up for—wait for it—Banned Books Week, the annual event to draw attention to the harms of censorship and celebrate the freedom to read. And for some of the library’s staff and patrons, the issue was very personal.
Once again, five of the top 10 books in the American Library Association’s (ALA’s) annual list of the most challenged books in the U.S. are there because of their LGBTQ content, among other reasons.
Once again, it’s Banned Books Week, the annual event from the American Library Association (ALA) that “draws national attention to the harms of censorship.” As in most previous recent years, the ALA’s Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books list is once again full of children’s books with LGBTQ content—so go read some banned books with your kids today.
