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Reviews of subversive literature
Remember Fredric Wertham, the 1950s anti-comic-book crusader? The Library of Congress has opened his private papers to scholars of censorship. Is that a photo of a man’s butt on the cover? Your book has just been banned in Canada! A new front in the fight against censorship: guerrilla libraries. Bummer. The small-brainers in Stockton, Missouri […]
Banned Books Week is September 25-October 2, so mark your calendars. And in case you didn’t know, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, sponsor of Banned Books Week, has a Facebook page. Planning to take your copy of Mein Kampf with you on your next trip to Toronto? Maybe you should rethink that. […]
Toni Morrison is under the gun again, this time in Indiana. No way! Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were once banned from American libraries? State senators in Delaware want schools to notify parents 48 hours prior to any book being used in the classroom, so that parents can pull kids from school during those […]
Here, fresh from the interwebs, a roundup of book banning stories and news: Guaranteed to stir up the book banners: books about Teh Gay in school libraries. What can’t you read in prison? Lots, apparently. And maybe there are some books you shouldn’t be able to read in prison, or even on the outside. That […]
Here’s another roundup of banned book news: First, some small victories: Washington state library board stands up to censors Wisconsin mother who challenged school library books overruled by board of education Graphic novel Bone survives school library challenge Still, there are miles to go before we sleep: Mom checks out teen books, keeps them to […]
Here’s another digest of book banning news from the USA (and Canada, where I thought they had better sense): The New Yorker on A Wrinkle in Time (including some interesting news about Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass movies, which I sincerely hope is not true). More on Philip Pullman and his new novel The Good Man […]
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a difficult read. Difficult, at first, for mundane reasons. Names you don’t know how to pronounce (Sethe, Halle). Irritating, non-standard diction (whitepeople, blackpeople). A narrative structure that jumps without transition from character to character, time to time, location to location, leaving you to catch up as best you can. A general […]
I recently set up a news feed to follow reports of book banning, challenges, and censorship. This is a roundup of current book banning news from the USA: Good news for kids who’ve been missing Captain Underpants Why they’re still freaking over Catcher in the Rye RIP Bruce Roberts, a champion of banned books Come […]