A plea for book censors to stand down
As noted in the previous post, this is Banned Books Week. Here’s a piece on the ugliness of censorship by James Blasingame, associate professor of English Education at Arizona State University, and the 2010 president of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English.“We got trouble, (oh, we got trouble), right here in River City”
Meredith Wilson, The Music Man, 1957
Meredith Wilson, The Music Man, 1957
There must be something in the river water in southern Arizona! Well, actually, there is no water in southern Arizona, but if there were, it would have something in it! Something that turns people into book censors. Dreaming in Cuban by Christina Garcia, a National Book Award finalist, was removed from high school classes this week in Sierra Vista, Arizona. The American Library Association (ALA) had never heard of anyone, anywhere, objecting to this book before, and those people really watch these things! In fact, they have a whole website dedicated to it, and they have been sponsoring Banned Books Week since 1982. Sierra Vista High School’s timing is impeccable on this one, making them the opening act in this year’s Banned Books Week, September 22-28.
Who could have predicted this? Of the many books challenged each year listed on the ALA website, not only has Dreaming in Cuban failed to join such “soul bludgeoning”
Q & A: School superintendents speak out on key issues
Have Washington area school systems been hurt by federal budget cuts? Are students being bombarded with too many standardized tests? How are schools handling the implementation of the Common Core State Standards? I asked superintendents around the Washington region to … Continue reading →
It’s Banned Books Week. Read a banned book!
It’s Banned Books Week, an annual celebration of the freedom to read, sponsored by the American Library Association. Every year, libraries and bookstores around the country use the week to highlight censorship by displaying books that are challenged and/or banned, … Continue reading →