book ban

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Obama's Dissent to Book Ban Hits TikTok

Former president says censorship of opposing viewpoints is 'profoundly misguided'

(Newser) - Fighting back against efforts to ban books from schools and public libraries, the American Library Association has found a prominent supporter in former President Obama. In an open letter to the nation's librarians, Obama denounces attempts to censor "some of the books that shaped my life—and...

District Sued After Restricting Access to Penguins' Story

Florida district keeps book about two male penguins and a chick from youngest students

(Newser) - Florida's restrictions on gender identity and sexual orientation as classroom subject matter are being challenged by the authors of a book about penguins—and students who want to read it. The Lake County school board decided last year to prevent students in kindergarten through third grade from having access...

'One of Most Sex-Ridden Books Around' Returned to School Shelves

Utah's Davis School District reverses decision

(Newser) - Bibles will return to the shelves in a northern Utah school district that provoked an outcry after it banned them from middle and elementary schools last month, the AP reports. Officials from the Davis School District said at a board meeting Tuesday that the district had determined the sacred text...

Illinois Libraries That Ban Books Won't Get Funding

'First of its kind' law has been signed

(Newser) - Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday signed into law a bill that he says will make Illinois the first state in the nation to outlaw book bans, the AP reports. Illinois public libraries that restrict or ban materials because of “partisan or doctrinal” disapproval will be ineligible for state...

Critics Say Winnie-the-Pooh Book Normalizes Shootings

Book featuring Winnie the Pooh puts onus on the kids, according to Dallas-area teacher

(Newser) - Texas has led the country in banning books from school libraries . For its part, the Dallas Independent School District has said it may remove library materials that are "pervasively vulgar." Amid that context, parents of district students are wondering why a book that they argue normalizes school shootings...

School Library Scraps Inaugural Poem After Parent Complaint

Amanda Gorman says she's 'gutted' that 'The Hill We Climb' was taken out of Fla. elementary library

(Newser) - The young poet who performed her spoken-word piece at President Biden's 2021 inauguration is now at the center of the latest book-banning controversy. Citing documents from the Florida Freedom to Read Project, Politico reports that Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hill We Climb" has been removed from the...

Illinois Approves Bill to Counter Book Banning

Adopting the Library Bill of Rights would be required to keep state funding

(Newser) - Illinois lawmakers greenlighted a bill Wednesday that says libraries in the state must adopt an anti-book banning policy to receive state funding, in a vote that fissured along party lines. The measure, spearheaded by Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, represents a counter-movement to growing efforts to restrict books on topics...

House GOP Pushes Through 'Parents Rights' Bill

Dems say legislation, which will likely stall in Senate, is a stunt that's really designed to control

(Newser) - House Republicans on Friday narrowly passed legislation that would fulfill a campaign promise to give parents a role in what's taught in public schools. It has little chance in the Democrat-run Senate, and critics say it will propel a far-right movement that has led to book bans, restrictions aimed...

Utah Parent Says Bible Is 'Porn' Under Book Ban Law

Push to remove Bible from schools follows removal of 33 other titles

(Newser) - Frustrated that titles like The Bluest Eye from Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison have been removed from schools as a result of Utah's new book-banning law , one parent is pushing to have the Bible banned. "You'll no doubt find that the Bible ... has 'no serious values...

Idaho Librarian Resigns Over 'Atmosphere of Extremism'

Among other things, Kimber Glidden was accused of 'grooming children for pedophiles'

(Newser) - “Nothing in my background could have prepared me for the political atmosphere of extremism, militant Christian fundamentalism, intimidation tactics, and threatening behavior currently being employed in the community,” librarian Kimber Glidden wrote in a statement announcing her resignation Aug. 16, per NBC News . Troubles began in March—a...

This Book-Banning Campaign Gets Unusually Personal
This Book-Banning Campaign
Gets Unusually Personal
longform

This Book-Banning Campaign Gets Unusually Personal

ProPublica looks at how woman's high-profile push in Texas has caused rift with her gay son

(Newser) - While book-banning campaigns aren't all that unusual, ProPublica takes a look at one such campaign in Texas that's uncommon on two fronts. First, 51-year-old Monica Brown filed a police report earlier this year in Granbury, Texas, accusing school district librarians of peddling pornography. Second, one of the most...

Good Luck Burning This $130K Copy of The Handmaid's Tale

Fire-resistant book is a form of protest against recent book bans

(Newser) - Margaret Atwood took a flamethrower to a copy of her bestseller The Handmaid's Tale to show that "powerful words can never be extinguished." Note it was a one-of-a-kind "unburnable" copy that just sold at a Sotheby's auction for $130,000. Publisher Penguin Random House created...

Virginia Republicans Take Barnes & Noble to Court

Judge finds probable cause that 2 books are obscene, may bar sale to minors

(Newser) - A judge in Virginia is considering whether to issue a restraining order against Barnes & Noble, after saying there's probable cause that two books it sells are obscene. The request for a restraining order accompanies a lawsuit filed by two Republicans, state Del. Timothy Anderson and congressional candidate Tommy...

After School Board Bans Maus, It Soars on Amazon

They objected to language, violence in Art Spiegelman's Holocaust book

(Newser) - Update: A Tennessee school board's decision to keep Art Spiegelman's Maus out of the hands of 8th-graders has fueled a buying spree. Mediaite reports that as of Sunday, the hardcover format of The Complete Maus is the No. 1 best seller on Amazon in the books category . Other...

Readers of Restricted Books Now Offered Cash, Grub

Locals object to Alaskan school board pulling classics from curriculum

(Newser) - Locals have responded to an Alaska school district's decision to pull classic books from the curriculum with efforts to ensure teenagers bury their noses in them. Since the Matanuska-Susitna Borough school board in Palmer voted earlier this month to stop teaching five books in elective high school English classes—...

Alaska School Board Bans Catch-22 , 4 Other Classics
School Board Pulls 5 Classics

School Board Pulls 5 Classics

Business picks up at local bookstore after vote

(Newser) - High school students in an Alaska district will no longer discuss several literary classics in class. The Matanuska-Susitna School Board voted 5-2 last week to remove five titles from the list of books teachers can use in elective English classes, the Anchorage Daily News reports. The books stricken are: Invisible ...

The Color Purple Out, Mein Kampf in for Texas Inmates

List of 10K books banned in Texas prisons has some surprising entries

(Newser) - Prisoners in Texas can't read the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple or the best-selling Freakonomics; some of the works of Hunter S. Thompson or a collection of Shakespearean sonnets; or books from the Where's Waldo series, The Simpsons, and Monty Python. They can, however, read Hitler's Mein ...

School District Rescinds Ban on Invisible Man

North Carolina officials thought Ellison's classic was inappropriate for teens

(Newser) - A North Carolina school board has rescinded its ban on Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, returning it to local high school libraries. The Randolph County Board of Education voted 6-1 this week to reverse the ban it issued 10 days ago . The board voted 5-2 on Sept. 16 to pull...

School Board Bans Ellison's Invisible Man

Member found 'no literary value' in award-winning racial narrative

(Newser) - A North Carolina county school board has voted to ban Ralph Ellison's acclaimed novel Invisible Man from school libraries, after a parent complained about its language, its sexual content, and the fact that it was written in the first person. "I didn't find any literary value,"...

Politician: Ban Toni Morrison Novel From Schools

The Bluest Eye becomes flashpoint in Common Core debate

(Newser) - Horrified by its depictions of child molestation and incest, Alabama state Sen. Bill Holtzclaw is calling for Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye to be struck from all high school reading lists in the state. "The book is just completely objectionable, from language to content," Holtzclaw tells the...

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