Recommended Reads from the Children's Collection @ the Education Library

Over the last two decades Pipkin and Lent have worked together to build a tradition of intellectual freedom within public schools. Their book describes their struggles as cultural workers, the pedagogical and legal strategies they employed, the resistance they encountered, the lessons they learned, and the impact that they've seen on the lives of the students they serve. Their story brings vividly to life some of the most important questions in public education today: Do First Amendment protections apply to teachers and students in K-12? Who controls what we can read and write in schools? Is inquiry or indoctrination at the heart of schooling? Can critical literacy survive the machinations of shortsighted bureaucrats and board members? Through two intertwined stories spanning nearly two decades, the authors address these questions. They also provide specific strategies for teachers trapped in similar circumstances.

Interesting retelling of 9 cases of book banning in the nation's schools during the 1970s.

Foerstel analyses eight major book-banning incidents from 1976 to 1992, ranks the 50 most challenged books in the 1990s and summarises the challenges to them. He also traces First Amendment cases and precedents in book-banning in schools and public libraries, and interviews banned authors.

Examines increasing censorship in public schools, describes the objections that lead to censorship, and discusses several case studies.

In our polarized environment, the censorship and outright banning of children's books which some deem to be controversial or objectionable remains a major concern for libraries. Intellectual freedom champion Scales returns to the fray with a new edition of her matchless guide, updating the focus to titles published since 2015 which have been the target of challenges. School and public librarians, LIS students, and classroom educators will find the assistance and support they need to defend these challenged books with an informed response while ensuring access to young book lovers. For each of the dozens of titles covered, readers will find a book summary; a report of the specific challenges; quotes from reviews, plus a list of awards and accolades, talking points for discussing the book's issues and themes, links to the book's website, additional resources about the book, and suggested further reading, and read-alikes that have been challenged for similar reasons.

Presents information and ideas reflecting viewpoints on censorship and related controversies about education. The author provides practical information and insights to help educators respond to the concerns, fears, and demands of parents and organized groups.

This thought-provoking anthology examines important censorship cases and explains how they affect teaching and learning. Included are documented accounts of recent complaints and challenges. The authors illustrate how censorship undermines the goals of elementary and secondary education and plagues all areas of the curriculum. Learn how to prepare for and fight attacks on classroom materials with specific plans of action for teachers, administrators, and school library media specialists in this powerful and comprehensive text.

Provides practical advice, guidelines, and tools for managing censorship conflicts.

Historian J. Evetts Haley and folklorist J. Frank Dobie, both legendary intellectuals in Texas letters, embodied the opposing and increasingly divergent views of a state and a nation mired in Cold War anxiety. After an unsuccessful bid for the governor's office in 1956, Haley and other conservatives formed a political action group called Texans for America. One of their targets was public education and the textbooks that Texas children were reading. Kownslar firmly places this controversy in the context of continued resistance to FDR's New Deal, the election of President Kennedy, and the accelerating civil rights movement. Ultimately, the majority of Texas' senators and representatives, Kownslar says, "seemed very weary of the whole textbook business and did not act." There may have been little legislative action, but the die was cast for interest groups to use textbook adoption as a battleground for larger social issues, a phenomenon that persists to this day.

Keep Them Reading is a concise handbook for teachers, librarians, administrators, and district personnel about how to prevent censorship in a school or district--and what to do if it happens. This book discusses the overall importance of reading in all academic endeavors and demonstrates how challenges and censorship can derail even the best literacy program. Each chapter contains practical tools, advice, and resources for building understanding about issues of intellectual freedom and for creating a plan to help all parties work through challenges before they turn into damaging censorship incidents. The last chapter contains advice from authors who have dealt with censorship and experts on the subject,

Before Anton Chekhov and Mark Twain can be used in school readers and exams, they must be vetted by a bias and sensitivity committee. Diane Ravitch maintains that America's students are compelled to read insipid texts that have been censored and bowdlerized, issued by publishers who willingly cut controversial material from their books: a case of the bland leading the bland. The Language Police is the first full-scale exposé of this cultural and educational scandal. It documents the existence of an elaborate and well-established protocol of beneficent censorship, quietly endorsed and implemented by test makers and textbook publishers, states, and the federal government. School boards and bias and sensitivity committees review, abridge, and modify texts to delete potentially offensive words, topics, and imagery.

In the past several years, hundreds of challenges a year to books used in public schools have been reported across the nation. Most of these have come from the Religious Right. This book confronts the attacks on public education and commonly used literature books by challenging the religious assumptions, the biblical interpretations, and the intimidation tactics of the Religious Right. Part I counters the claims of these censors by presenting opposing views on democracy, secular humanism, religion, the Bible, morality, and the purposes of literature. In Part II, six books frequently taught in high school classes are analyzed. Edwards shows why they have been challenged by the Religious Right, and presents a case for their moral and religious virtues as well as their literary worth. The book differs from other anti-censorship works because it deals primarily and directly with the religious and moral aspects that educators often tend to avoid. This book offers teachers and school administrators scholarly conterarguments that can help confront with literature challenges from the Religious Right.

While in office, the 1976 chairman of the Committee against Censorship of the National Council of Teachers of English received reports of complaints about classroom and library materials; debated with textbook protestors; and participated in over 100 radio shows, at least half of which were call-in shows involving exchange of views with schoolbook protesters. This book focuses on the 40 questions most frequently asked in his discussions with teachers, librarians, administrators, school board members, students, and parents. The following are among the topics discussed: (1) rights of parents and students; (2) arguments used by book protesters and their opponents; (3) legal background; (4) background of the schoolbook protesters; and (5) guides for school systems in the materials selection process and in how to respond to schoolbook protesters.

In The Transformative Potential of LGBTQ+ Children's Picture Books, Jennifer Miller identifies an archive of over 150 English-language children's picture books that explicitly represent LGBTQ+ identities, expressions, and issues. This archive is then analyzed to explore the evolution of LGBTQ+ characters and content from the 1970s to the present. Miller describes dominant tropes that emerge in the field to analyze historical shifts in representational practices, which she suggests parallel larger sociocultural shifts in the visibility of LGBTQ+ identities. Additionally, Miller considers material constraints and possibilities affecting the production, distribution, and consumption of LGBTQ+ children's picture books from the 1970s to the present. This foundational work defines the field of LGBTQ+ children's picture books thoroughly, yet accessibly.

What happens when freedom of expression comes under threat? In frank and wide-ranging interviews, historian and critic Leonard S. Marcus probes the experience of thirteen leading authors of books for young people.

The academy is in crisis. Students call for speakers to be banned, books to be slapped with trigger warnings and university to be a Safe Space, free of offensive words or upsetting ideas. But as tempting as it is to write off intolerant students as a generational blip, or a science experiment gone wrong, they've been getting their ideas from somewhere. Bringing together leading journalists, academics and agitators from the US and UK, Unsafe Space is a wake-up call. From the war on lad culture to the clampdown on climate sceptics, we need to resist all attempts to curtail free speech on campus. But society also needs to take a long, hard look at itself. Our inability to stick up for our founding, liberal values, to insist that the free exchange of ideas should always be a risky business, has eroded free speech from within.

Schools in the United States have historically banned many different things. From clothing to weapons, from cell phones to books, schools have implemented various types of censorship and restrictions on their students for a variety of reasons and with a variety of results. This book's purpose is to describe the various things banned in schools, the reasons behind attempts to ban such things, the types of people who approve of censoring those things and the types who do not, the outcome of representative cases of censorship, and suggestions for school personnel about how to cope with bans.