You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review: The Confessions of Nat Turner

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News Many Americans these days are engaged in protest. Reading in public, especially the reading of banned or challenged books, can also be an act of protest. Related: Using Banned Books to Teach Resistance. Not banning by any means, but […]

You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review Lookback: A Wrinkle in Time

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News Roundup This is an interesting exchange: Elementary school librarian to author: It’s not that I don’t think heroin addiction is extremely important. Our community has faced its share of heartbreaking stories in regards to drug abuse but fourth […]

You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review: Beyond Magenta

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News Right-wing conservatives get upset about book banning too. But are schools in Portland, Oregon, actually banning textbooks that deny or call into question climate change? Not really. Texas schools were encouraged to teach Mexican-American history. They’re off to a great start with […]

You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review Lookback: Looking for Alaska

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News In the last YCRT! I mentioned a Canadian comedian who is being investigated by a Quebec human rights commission over a joke. Well, get a load of this: a German comedian is being prosecuted for mocking Turkish President Erdogan. And no, not in […]

Paul’s Book Reviews

“The witch hunt stands as a cobwebbed, crowd-sourced cautionary tale, a reminder that—as a minister at odds with the crisis noted—extreme right can blunder into extreme wrong.” — Stacy Schiff, The Witches: Salem, 1692 Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice Adam Makos I thought Devotion an excellent book: a true story, well […]

You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review: The Diary of a Young Girl

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! News Roundup: A parent in Seminole County, Florida, lodges a complaint after her 9-year-old brings home a copy of This One Summer, a young adult graphic novel aimed at readers aged 12 to 18. The book is pulled from elementary school […]

You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review: The Boy Came Back

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. Textbooks confiscated from Tucson Unified School District classrooms, January 2012 Banned Books Week Commentary From Friends & Foes Can you parse this Banned Book Week letter to the editor? I can’t make heads or tails of it! An attempt to ban a […]

You Can’t Read That! Banned Book Review: Maus

You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. YCRT! Mini-Rant From a long editorial titled The Erosion of Free Speech on a conservative think tank’s website, I learn that more than 300 students and professors at Valdosta State University in Georgia signed a petition demanding the withdrawal of the American Library Association’s […]