"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
Reviews of subversive literature
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. Great news! Instead of trying to preemptively ban controversial material in state schools, Florida instead plans to proactively expose 8th graders to new ideas. Oh, wait…. In previous YCRT! posts I’ve followed the battle between conservative parents and teachers over textbooks and reading assignments in a Dallas, […]
Many months ago I said I’d monitor news coverage of the trials of the 11 motorcyclists arrested after a videotaped beating of a motorist in New York City. I believed then, and believe now, that the motorist did something to start the fight, but unfortunately whatever happened to set things in motion was not videotaped. I hoped that once the […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news. YCRT! updates from Tucson, Arizona, where 80 textbooks, along with the entire Mexican-American Studies program, were banned from local high schools in 2012: The House on Mango Street goes to trial: Maya vrs. Arizona Tucson schools superintendent defies Arizona law by reintroducing […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News Banned in Tucson™ author Patricia Williams takes on the rising tide of academic book bannings, firings, and the growing disregard for scholarship in the USA. Speaking of the growing disregard for scholarship, Rush Limbaugh supports replacing the teaching of actual […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. That’s a photo of my grandson Quentin in the Greenspun Middle School library in Henderson, Nevada. While my wife and I were visiting our kids and grandkids during Thanksgiving week, his school hosted a grandparents’ day. When we walked by the library I asked if […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news. YCRT! News I mentioned this Arizona story in a previous YCRT! post. Conservative school board members and parents in Gilbert, a Phoenix-area suburb, decided to cut (literally, with scissors) pages mentioning abortion from an AP biology textbook. In the November elections the conservative […]
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 […]
I’ve been catching up on my reading. No, strike that, there’re be no catching up in my lifetime. I add new books to the pile as fast as I finish the ones already there. The library sent an email alert this morning: an American history text I ordered is in. I don’t normally read textbooks, […]