Posted on May 31, 2023 at 9:53 AM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
Fussy spent much of the past five days traveling and visiting with family, so we came back to quite the pile of news.
Battles over who can read what continued to rage, apparently ...
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A bill in Texas banning "sexually explicit books" from school libraries has passed the state legislature and is awaiting the governor's signature (CNHI News).
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Conversely, Illinois's governor is expected to sign a bill that would remove state funding from public libraries and public schools if they ban books (The Guardian).
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And the American Library Association and the Authors Guild are among the groups teaming up to sue the state of Arkansas over a law that would criminally penalize librarians who provide "obscene material" to children (The Guardian).
In another intersection of politics and literature, former FBI Director James Comey, who also worked as a US attorney and in law enforcement, has written a crime novel called Central Park West (NPR).
Ama Ata Aidoo, the first published female African dramatist (and a former Ghanaian education minister), has died at the age of eighty-one (Literary Hub).
A Texas school district has apologized for the lack of context and guidance around the decision to send home a Winnie the Pooh-themed book that teaches kids to "run, hide, fight" in dangerous situations like a shooting (The New York Times).
And author Joanne Harris called for the world to encourage boys to read books about girls so that they don't grow up to perceive a woman's voice as less important (The Guardian).
Categories: Today in Books