Celebrities Sign Public Letter Pushing Hollywood Community to Speak Out Against Book Bans | Censorship News

Ariana Grande, Guillermo del Toro, Padma Lakshmi, Roxane Gay, Gabrielle Union, Sandra Cisneros, Amanda Gorman, Margaret Cho, and Ron Perlman are among the upwards of 175 public figures who signed an open letter calling on creative communities to leverage their voices to stop book bans. 

Ariana Grande, Guillermo del Toro, Padma Lakshmi, and More Sign Open Letter Denouncing Book Bans and Their “Chilling Effect” (Exclusive) | The Hollywood Reporter
Ariana Grande, Guillermo del Toro, Padma Lakshmi, Roxane Gay, Gabrielle Union, Sandra Cisneros, Amanda Gorman, Margaret Cho, and Ron Perlman are among the upwards of 175 actors,  musicians, authors, comedians, reality stars, models, media personalities, academics, activists who signed an open letter calling on creative communities in Hollywood and beyond to leverage their voices to stop book bans. 

Katy, TX, ISD Bans 14 More Books | Axios Houston
Katy (TX) ISD has banned additional books this school year after the district expanded the terms under which a book could be pulled for review, adding "nudity" to the definition of inappropriate material. The list of newly banned titles includes titles for elementary school students, including Dr. Seuss' Wacky Wednesday, Robert Munsch's The Paper Bag Princess, and No, David! by David Shannon.

"I Stood Up for My Freedoms' | Katy ISD Graduate Becomes Advocate for Student Rights | KHOU11
Cameron Samuels, a Katy ISD graduate, recently testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee addressing book bans.

South Carolina Groups Call for Transparency from Berkeley County Schools on Book Reviews | WCSC5
Members of the Goose Creek (SC) NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union are calling for transparency in the Berkeley County School District. This comes after the groups said 93 books were challenged by a single person.

Kansas State Board of Education Member Laments ‘Smut’ in Libraries | Lawrence Journal World
Kansas State Board of Education member Danny Zeck quoted from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian as he turned a state meeting on book removal practices into an ideological discussion of why “smut,” as he called some books, is allowed in local schools.

How Library Supporters Rallied Against a Call to Ban LGBTQ Books in Fairhope, AL | AL.com
About 150 people attended the meeting, not for anything on the agenda, but for discussion about the library.

Miami Now Has a Banned Books Club Founded by a 16-Year-Old | WLRN
Iris Mogul, 16 and a junior at the Academy for Advanced Academics, says she founded the Banned Books Club because she wanted a place to dig into authors like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison and talk about why their books are banned and "what we think of that."

Complaint Against Westport, MA, Teacher Follows Growing Trend of Book Challenges | The New Bedford Light
More than a dozen parents and community members came to support Matthew Shivers, the English teacher placed on leave after a parent complained that the veteran instructor had read aloud from a Margaret Atwood story.

Carroll County, MD, Public School Students Take a Stand Against Potential Book Bans I CBS News
Carroll County (MD) NAACP Youth Council members spoke at last week's board meeting, fighting to keep every book that was under scrutiny in school libraries.

 

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