We’ve all seen the numbers. This year alone, between January 1 and August 31, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 414 attempts to censor library materials, including 1,128 unique title challenges. Many of the challenged books are for children and teens and share stories by and about the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities. Advocacy resources are available, including the Unite Against Book Bans Book Resumes highlighted in a May 2024 blog post. The Office for Intellectual Freedom is ready to help. Our ALSC and the wider library communities are ready to help. But still, this is exhausting. It’s time for a bit of encouragement. In May of 2024, I attended a conference called the Banned Books Symposium. The conference features presentations on banned and challenged books and programming. This year’s event included a library sharing a banned books trading card program, a book challenge simulation done for staff training, protecting LGBTQIA+…
Tag: Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund- Learning About Comics and Intellectual Freedom at #alaac14
I had the pleasure of attending a wonderful program this afternoon, The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund- Intellectual Freedom and the Defense of Graphic Novels and Comic Books. The entertaining and educational presentation led by the executive director of the CBLDF, Charles Brownstein, covered nearly 30 years of comic book censorship history. As a self proclaimed comic book nerd and leader of a graphic novel book club for tweens at my public library, I was genuinely shocked to learn about the dramatic and controversial history of comic books. Did you know that there were public burnings of comic books in this country in the 1940s?! Many people believed that comic books rotted children’s brains and caused teenagers to become criminals. This is history people, I couldn’t make this sort of crazy up! The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a nonprofit organization that works hard to protects comic book artists,…