"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
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, […]
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 […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! Rant Another school year has begun and we’re in for a fresh round of book challenges and bannings. This essay provides an excellent overview of educational censorship, and discusses the idea of providing parental advisory ratings for books on school reading lists and library […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. This post will go out on the first day of Banned Books Week, September 21-27, in honor of those who fight to protect our right to read and write. YCRT! Banned Books Week Editorial Every year conservative pundits line up to […]