WE NEED TO MAKE THE VOICES SUPPORTING DIVERSE BOOKS AND OPPOSING BOOK BANS EVEN LOUDER. These 11 people seem to have made submitting copy-cat book challenges their full-time hobby and their opinions are having an outsized ripple effect across the nation. One man alone was responsible for 92 challenges. I was literally on route to a festival to talk about book bans when I read a startling statistic.Ħ0% of the 1000 book challenges were submitted by just 11 people. In May 2023, I read an article from the Washington Post analyzing nearly 1000 of the book challenges from the 2021-2022 school year. This is massively impacting the daily lives of librarians, teachers, students, booksellers, and authors around the country. The future of libraries, both publicly funded and in schools, are at stake. We are at a crossroads of freedom of speech and censorship. I’m sorry you had to defend it, but thank you for trying, even if it didn’t work.” Thank you for working so hard to keep my book in your library. Once again, the librarians in my signing line all had similar stories for me: “Your book was challenged in our district" My first event since covid hit was the American Library Association conference in June 2022 in Washington, DC. Without funding, the library is due to close in mid-2024. When librarians in Jamestown, Michigan refused to remove GENDER QUEER and several other books, the citizens of the town voted down the library’s funding in the fall 2022 election. Some libraries won’t allow anyone under 18 to get any kind of library card without parental permission. Hoopla and Libby/Overdrive, apps used to access digital library books, are now banned in Mississippi to anyone under 18. Summer Boismeir is now working for the Brooklyn Public Library. A teacher in Norman, Oklahoma gave her students the QR code for the free eCard and lost her job. The Brooklyn Public Library offered free eCards to anyone in the US aged 13-21, in an effort to make banned books more available to young readers. These challenges are coming unevenly across the US, in a pattern that mirrors the legislative attacks on LGBTQ people. Most of these challenges are to books with diverse characters and LGBTQ themes. The American Library Association has tracked an astronomical increase in book challenges over the past few years. It has also been the most banned book in the United States for the past two years. Since then, GENDER QUEER been published in 8 languages, with more on the way: Spanish, Czech, Polish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portugese and Dutch. But the early support of librarians and two American Library Association awards helped sell two print runs in first year. While working on the book, I was genuinely unsure if anyone outside of my family and close friends would read it. Maia: “Thank you for helping readers find my book!” So many of the people who came to my signing were librarians, and so many of them said the same thing: “I know exactly who I want to give this to!” The first event I went to with GENDER QUEER was in NYC in 2019 at the Javits Center. instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble PTSA can sponsor a limited number of need-based scholarships. $5 is added to tuition ($7 for language classes) and is used to help fund scholarships.My very last comic for The Nib! End of an era! Transcription below the cut.Scholarships: Please email our school counselor Sondra Chamberlain to inquire about a scholarship.*PTSA Members, will receive an email with the links to enroll 24 hours before registration opens up to all Lakeview families. > CLICK HERE TO REGISTER CLASS IS FULL - JOIN THE WAITLIST < When: Thursdays from 3:50pm to 4:50 pm (UPDATED) Spanish - By Paris Academy Northwest - SPOTS AVAILABLE > CLICK HERE TO REGISTER CLICK HERE TO REGISTER CLICK HERE TO REGISTER CLASS IS FULL - JOIN THE WAITLIST CLICK HERE TO REGISTER CLICK HERE TO REGISTER CLICK HERE TO REGISTER CLASS IS FULL - JOIN THE WAITLIST CLICK HERE TO REGISTER CLASS IS FULL CLASS IS FULL - JOIN THE WAITLIST <</p>
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