Children\u2019s publishing often reflects what\u2019s happening in the world children live in. The COVID-19 pandemic. Gun violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And now book banning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m on the wait list for a picture book about banned books. According to the publisher\u2019s description, The Great Banned Books Bake-Sale,<\/em> written by Aya Khalil and illustrated by Anait Semirdzhyan, stars Egyptian immigrant Kanzi, who is upset when a collection of books about immigrants and children of color disappears from her school library\u2019s shelf. Before this happened, she felt welcomed in her new school; now she feels confused and scared. Supported by her classmates, Kanzi plans a bake sale where the proceeds will purchase diverse books for libraries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year, two middle grade novels tackled book banning. David Levithan\u2019s Answers in the Pages<\/em> features fifth grader Donovan, whose mom picks up an adventure book he\u2019s reading and objects to the two main characters having a gay relationship. Or not? Perhaps? Maybe? Donovan hasn\u2019t reached that point yet and doesn\u2019t care. He doesn\u2019t think it should be banned. And now, his community is in turmoil\u2026and so is his family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Attack of the Black Rectangles<\/em> by Amy Sarig King tells the story of Mac, who opens his copy of Jane Yolen\u2019s The Devil\u2019s Arithmetic<\/em> to find words blacked out. At first, he thinks it\u2019s a joke, but changes his mind when he discovers what words are missing (note: Yolen\u2019s book is about the Holocaust). Mac won\u2019t let adults stop him and his classmates from getting\u2014and reading\u2014all the facts. But the adults in charge don\u2019t take him seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What other books have you read recently\u2014for kids\u2014that speak out against censorship? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s blog post was written by Maria Trivisonno, Family Engagement Specialist at Cuyahoga County Public Library in suburban Cleveland, Ohio on behalf of the ALSC Intellectual Freedom Committee. She can be reached at <\/em>mtrivisonno@cuyahogalibrary.org<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This post addresses the core competencies of I. Commitment to Client Group <\/em>and IV. Knowledge, Curation, and Management of Materials.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Children\u2019s publishing often reflects what\u2019s happening in the world children live in. The COVID-19 pandemic. Gun violence. And now book banning. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[272,1],"tags":[1428,2591,1087],"class_list":["post-29523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-intellectual-freedom-committee","category-uncategorized","tag-banned-books","tag-book-banning","tag-censorship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}