Sigh. From Time:
[Former Wassilla Mayor John] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t [...]
Stories in Freedom to read:
Time Palin backgrounder: She wanted to ban books
Notebook: fREADom, “real” literacy and black humor
About Uncle Bobby: In Uncle Bobby’s Wedding a niece worries that her uncle’s upcoming wedding will change her relationship with him. P.S. The characters are guinea pigs. P.P.S. Uncle Bobby is gay. One Colorado library patron wrote the local paper to say the children’s picture book was a “slap in [her] face” and urged other [...]
Score one for reader privacy
The AP reports:
Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), newly unsealed court records show.
The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.
“The (subpoena’s) chilling effect on [...]
No (Lesbian) Sex In The Stacks, Please
An Arkansas dad sues after his teen sons stumble upon San Francisco author Felice Newman’s The Whole Lesbian Sex Book at the library. The two boys had been, um, browsing for “military academy” reading materials.
Saying no to a Newbery award winner
Patt Morrison talks with Susan Patron — the LA librarian who recently won a John Newbery Medal for outstanding contribution to American children’s literature for her book The Higher Power of Lucky — about the controversy surrounding the book. Because it contains the word “scrotum,” some school librarians are refusing to stock it. Pat [...]
Time Palin backgrounder: She wanted to ban books
Notebook: fREADom, “real” literacy and black humor
About Uncle Bobby: In Uncle Bobby’s Wedding a niece worries that her uncle’s upcoming wedding will change her relationship with him. P.S. The characters are guinea pigs. P.P.S. Uncle Bobby is gay. One Colorado library patron wrote the local paper to say the children’s picture book was a “slap in [her] face” and urged other [...]
Score one for reader privacy
The AP reports:
Federal prosecutors have withdrawn a subpoena seeking the identities of thousands of people who bought used books through online retailer Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), newly unsealed court records show.
The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.
“The (subpoena’s) chilling effect on [...]
No (Lesbian) Sex In The Stacks, Please
An Arkansas dad sues after his teen sons stumble upon San Francisco author Felice Newman’s The Whole Lesbian Sex Book at the library. The two boys had been, um, browsing for “military academy” reading materials.
Saying no to a Newbery award winner
Patt Morrison talks with Susan Patron — the LA librarian who recently won a John Newbery Medal for outstanding contribution to American children’s literature for her book The Higher Power of Lucky — about the controversy surrounding the book. Because it contains the word “scrotum,” some school librarians are refusing to stock it. Pat [...]
Meet the authors of the California Authors Directory. Visit the directory to discover writers like Christina Meldrum, a Bay Area attorney whose book Madapple was just released this month. “In debut novelist Christina Meldrum's mesmerizing literary mystery, 
You can shop online from your local independent booksellers. 
July briefs: censorship, fires, new fiction and a b-day
No room for Freedom in Perry, Indiana. A veteran high school teacher in Perry, Indiana has been suspended without pay for teaching The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. The book by Long Beach, California teacher/author Erin Gruwell and her students [...]
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