A Progressive on the Prairie

It’s too easy to think of book challenges in the abstract. The fact is it is something we confront even here.

If you take a look at a map showing documented challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States, you’ll see South Dakota has two push pins.

In 2010, “Paul Shaffer’s We’ll […]

The issue of challenging books is one that is unlikely to go away. After all, it has come up repeatedly in the 220 years the First Amendment has been part of the Constitution. But where are the challenges coming from, what prompts them and in what settings? That’s something the American Library Association has attempted […]

As I wrote about yesterday, an August news story on book challenges in the schools had as a sidebar a list compiled by the American Library Association of 20 books “banned” by schools already this year. Yesterday’s post covered the first 10, listed alphabetically, and today I’ll take a look at the remaining 10.

I […]