154

There is now enacted or pending legislation in more than 30 U.S. states prohibiting certain kinds of books from being in schools – mostly LGBTQIA+ titles and books that engage with the presence of racism in our country. Because Scholastic Book Fairs are invited into schools, where books can be purchased by kids on their own, these laws create an almost impossible dilemma: back away from these titles or risk making teachers, librarians, and volunteers vulnerable to being fired, sued, or prosecuted.

To continue offering these books, as well as even more high interest titles, we created an additional collection called Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice for our U.S. elementary school fairs. We cannot make a decision for our school partners around what risks they are willing to take, based on the state and local laws that apply to their district, so these topics and this collection have been part of many planning calls that happen in advance of shipping a fair.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] theragu40@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

Is it wrong to buy my kids "read banned books" shirts?

Joking, but only sort of. I'm so irritated that this is the world they are growing up in. That I'm going to have to have conversations with them about why people are trying to restrict what they can learn based on bigotry and why that is wrong. There are so many other things they could be worrying about, I hate that we have this as an additional and completely unnecessary distraction.

Completely understand Scholastic's move here. It's unfortunate in a vacuum but on the other hand I'm very glad they aren't simply dropping these titles entirely.

[-] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

It’s never wrong to teach your kids how to resist fascism

[-] modifier@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago

It's not wrong, don't be joking.

[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

While this is fucked up, and I don't support the bans, ever generation has it's banned books that are essentially harmless. I'm 37 and remembered hearing about Catcher In The Rye being banned and I thought it was going to be something raunchy. I read some of it years later and was like "this is it?!"

I love that Scholastic is standing strong. My mom still has a magnet on her fridge that I bought for her like 30 years ago at a book fair that says "I love you, Mom!". The book fairs were the shit back in the day.

[-] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

If your kids have read (or you have read to them) some banned books, and agree the reasons they're banned are wrong, you can buy the shirts, with the caveat that they can only wear them when you're there to protect them against anyone who reacts with violence. And if they're old enough to have their own battles with society, maybe you could get yourself a shirt which supports that cause.

this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
154 points (99.4% liked)

News

23287 readers
2030 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS