You Can't Read That! is a periodic post featuring news about banned and challenged books.
Arizona
Hyperbolic but worth the read: an essay titled What Do Apartheid South Africa and Tucson, Arizona Have in Common?
Elsewhere
Are Republicans more likely than Democrats to be in favor of banning books that teach "dangerous ideas"? It would seem so (duh), but the good news is that today, fewer Americans overall approve of banning books than they did a few years ago.
Speaking of Republicans, one plank of the recently-adopted Texas GOP platform calls for eliminating the teaching of "critical thinking" in schools:
Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
What, you ask, does this have to do with banning books? Everything. When things like this creep onto the law books (as with the
recent law banning the mention of "gateway sexual activity" in Tennessee schools, or the proposed Arizona law to
ban "partisan" textbooks), reactionary authorities will use the laws as an excuse to ban books from school reading lists and libraries ... and in my opinion, banning books is the underlying purpose of such laws.
ACLU weighs in on Utah school's book banning. Duh.
Bodily function books popular with kids; less so with parents. Duh.
Item: spelling bee kids favor banned books. Another duh.
Illinois school board spokesman takes a lesson in denial from the Tucson Unified School District: "Heaven forbid, we didn't ban any books or materials from our school -- we merely chose to get other teaching materials from another place." Oh well, that's okay then!
Cartoon credit: Tom Gauld, The New York Times
Wondering about the cartoon? It goes with this NYT article: How to read a racist book to your kids.