Kentuckians challenged these 395 library books. Is your favorite listed?; Indianapolis Star via Courier Journal, October 17, 2024

John Tufts , Indianapolis Star via Courier Journal; Kentuckians challenged these 395 library books. Is your favorite listed?

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"Roughly 150 public libraries, library associations and bookstores this Saturday will observe Freedom to Read Day. Advocates have said the event is a reminder that while Banned Books Week might've ended last month, the fight against book censorship continues.

More than 10,000 books were banned or challenged in U.S. schools last year, according to a September report released by PEN America. The free speech advocacy group found efforts to censor books nearly tripled in 2023-2024, a significant jump from the 3,362 instances documented over the previous school year.

A separate report released by the American Library Association during Banned Books Week (September 22-28), gave contrasting data, however...

What is Freedom to Read Day?

On Oct. 19, 2024, the ALA and ALA-funded Unite Against Book Bans campaign will celebrate libraries across the country and encourage civic participation with Freedom to Read Day, an event meant to draw attention toward fighting book censorship...

What books did Kentucky residents challenge in 2023?

Kentucky, according to an updated ALA report, challenged 395 books in libraries across the state — from Maia Kobabe's "Gender Queer: A Memoir" to John Green's "Looking for Alaska."

The Courier Journal has provided a full list of challenged books toward the bottom of this article.

The majority of challenges were directed toward books with LGBTQ+ themes and characters, as well as books featuring people of color...

C-D; Books that Kentuckians challenged, from 'Call Me By Your Name' to 'Dune: House Atreides'

• "Call Me By Your Name" by André Aciman
• "Calvin" by J.R. Ford
• "Camp Quiltbag" by Nicole Melleby
• "Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship" by Irene Latham
• Can't Take That Away" by Steven Salvatore
• "Captain Underpants and the Sensational Saga of Sir Stinks A-Lot" by Dav Pilkey
• "The Cardboard Kingdom" by Chad Sell
• "Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow" by Rainbow Rowell
• "Catwoman: Soulstealer" by Sarah J. Maas
• "Cemetery Boys" by Aiden Thomas
• "Change Sings" by Amanda Gorman
• "Check, Please! #hockey" by Ngozi Ukazu
• "Check, Please! Vol. 2: Sticks & Scones" by Ngozi Ukazu
• "Chosen" by P.C. Cast
• "Cinderella is Dead" by Kalynn Bayron
• "Clap When You Land" by Elizabeth Acevedo
• "Clara Lemlich [She Persisted Series]" by Deborah Heligman
• "Class Act" by Jerry Craft
• "Clockwork Princess" by Cassandra Clare
• "Concrete Rose" by Angie Thomas
• "Cool for the Summer" by Dahlia Adler
• "Crank" by Ellen Hopkins
• "Critical Perspectives on Gender Identity" by Nicki Peter Petrikowski
• "The Crown of Midnight" by Sarah J. Maas
• "Cut" by Patricia McCormick

'No one wants to be censored':People are supporting 'book sanctuaries' despite politics

• "Damsel" by Elana K. Arnold
• "Darius the Great" by Jamie Poolos
• "Darius the Great Deserves Better" by Adib Khorram
• "The Dead and the Dark" by Courtney Gould
• "Dear Martin" by Nic Stone
• "Dear Sweet Pea" by Julie Murphy
• "The Deep & Dark Blue" by Niki Smith
• "Defining Sexual Consent: Where the Law Falls Short" by New York Times Educational Publishing
• "Diary of a Misfit: A Memoir and a Mystery" by Casey Parks
• "The Difference Between You and Me" by Madeleine George
• "Disarmed" by Sarah Rees Brennan
• "Doll Bones" by Holly Black
• "Doodleville" by Chad Sell
• "Drama" by Raina Telgemeier
• "Dress Codes for Small Towns" by Courtney C Stevens
• "The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend" by Kody Keplinger
• "Dune: House Atreides [Series]" by Brian Herbert"

After abuse revelations, professors grapple with how to teach Munro; The Washington Post, July 12, 2024

 Amanda Coletta, The Washington Post; After abuse revelations, professors grapple with how to teach Munro

"Professors are wrestling with how to teach Munro’s work. Bookstores are debating whether to feature it on their shelves. And Canadians are grappling with the age-old question: Is it possible to divorce the art from the artist?"

In Florida, a bestselling author is building a new community of literary resistance; CNN, May 2, 2024

Scottie Andrew , CNN; In Florida, a bestselling author is building a new community of literary resistance

"Groff is opening the Lynx now to plant a flag in her adopted home state, where she worries free thought is becoming increasingly endangered.

This isn’t just any bookstore, because Groff isn’t just any bookseller. She’s a three-time National Book Award finalist and one of Florida’s most acclaimed living writers. She’s published bestselling novels like “Fates and Furies,” a diptych that documents a marriage from the perspective of both spouses, and “Matrix,” historical fiction set in a 12th-century French convent...

But she and her neighbors are increasingly concerned about laws Florida’s government is passing that make it easier to ban books, restrict what can be taught about Black historyand limit the rights of LGBTQ residents.

The city needed a new stronghold against these threats, and Groff knew she was the person to make it."

How Barnes & Noble Came Back From Near Dead; The New York Times, January 28, 2023

Ezra Klein, The New York Times; How Barnes & Noble Came Back From Near Dead

[Kip Currier] Bookstores and libraries have their own distinctive communities and cultures. In 2004, during my doctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh, I took a still-resonant ethnographic studies course taught by the phenomenal Dr. Maureen Porter in Pitt's School of Education. For my term-long ethnographic study that term, I sat in, observed, and became an unwitting participant in the culture and community of the cafe in a strip plaza location of the now (sadly!) defunct Borders book store chain in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. In a wistful, encomiastic New York Times OpEd this week, frequent tech culture commentator Ezra Klein opines on the sense of community and "third place" that brick-and-mortar bookstores and libraries can continue to provide in the digital age...

FYI: "How Barnes & Noble Came Back From Near Dead". (1/28/23). The New York Times.

[Excerpt]

"Barnes & Noble’s resurgence is a reminder that there is nothing inevitable about its (or any bookstore’s) demise. Great bookstores and libraries still provide something the digital world cannot: a place not just to buy or borrow books, but to be among them."

Opinion: I witnessed brutal censorship in Iran. We should all take U.S. book bans as a warning.; The Washington Post; February 14, 2022

Azar Nafisi, The Washington Post; Opinion: I witnessed brutal censorship in Iran. We should all take U.S. book bans as a warning.

"Azar Nafisi is the author of “Reading Lolita in Tehran.” Her new book, “Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times,” comes out in March.

First they burn books, then they kill people!”

That line often came to mind when I was living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, every time the regime closed a bookstore or a publishing house, every time it censored, banned, jailed or even killed authors. It never occurred to me that one day I would repeat the same sentiment in a democracy, in my new home, the United States of America...

It is alarming to think that American communities in 2022 are actively seeking to deprive people of the reading experiences for which my students in Iran paid such a heavy price. For I can tell you: Book bans are canaries in coal mines — indicators of the direction in which a society is moving.

In recent years, we have seen how truth is replaced by lies, and how dangerous a cultivated ignorance can be, especially when it is embraced by our political leaders and our loudest media commentators, those with the largest bullhorns. Book-banning is a form of silencing, and it is the next step along a continuum — one that I worry even in the United States presages a further slide toward totalitarianism."

Hong Kong book fair subdued after bookseller disappearances; Guardian, 7/25/16

Ilaria Maria Sala. Guardian; Hong Kong book fair subdued after bookseller disappearances:

"The controls on travellers have been strengthened, and many who came to Hong Kong to buy books censored in mainland China have stopped buying them, as they may get into trouble at the border.”...

What has befallen the five booksellers has cast a heavy pall across the industry in Hong Kong. “We now have problems at both ends of the book chain”, says Bao Pu, of New Century Press, a publishing house known for high-quality political works banned on the mainland. “Printers are not willing to print politically sensitive books, throughout the Hong Kong printing industry. This is a very serious situation. The printers are deciding what can be read. At the other end of the chain there are the bookstores, and most of them will no longer sell this kind of book because it is considered dangerous.

“Also, you see fewer political books because in this situation, we publish less. I think that Hong Kong is no longer a place that supports independent publishing, since the Causeway Bay Books event [when Gui Minhai was arrested].”"

Expanding Privacy Legislation to Include Ebooks; American Libraries, July/August 2013

Mariam Pera, American Libraries; Expanding Privacy Legislation to Include Ebooks: "While privacy continues to be an issue on the national scene, at least two states—Arizona and New Jersey—have taken steps to expand their library privacy laws to include ebooks... Arizona and New Jersey follow in the footsteps of California, which in 2011 passed the Reader Privacy Act, extending library records protections to print-book and ebook purchases."