You Can’t Read That!

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! Mini-Rant Here’s a Bookriot editorial on the overuse of scare phrases like “book banning.” Wait a minute! I use the phrase, but (I like to think) carefully and with intent. Here’s my rationale, paraphrased from earlier YCRT! posts: I find […]

Thursday Bag o’ Triggers

This, from an article in the Columbia Daily Spectator: “During the week spent on Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses,’ the class was instructed to read the myths of Persephone and Daphne, both of which include vivid depictions of rape and sexual assault. As a survivor of sexual assault, the student described being triggered while reading such detailed accounts […]

You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review: The Glass Castle

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! Mini-Rant In my previous YCRT! post I ranted about a dangerous idea gaining momentum in conservative and religious circles: requiring schools or publishers to put advisory ratings or content alerts on books that might be assigned to elementary and secondary school students. As […]

You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review: Fun Home

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. Brunswick County NC school officials, in the wake of yet another parental challenge to Sherman Alexie’s young adult novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, have decided the book will stay on the shelves of a middle school. One parent, though, […]

You Can’t Read That!

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! Rant Legislators in the Kansas Senate are considering a bill that will make it easy for parents and district attorneys to bring legal action against teachers, librarians, and school principals who expose students to “objectionable material” (which the bill […]