In what she calls "Books Not Bans," Becka Robbins sends titles to groups that want them in the face of a movement by conservative advocacy groups and lawmakers to ban them from schools and libraries.
According to PEN America, 4,349 books were banned from schools between July and December 2023, more than the entire previous school year. More than 3,000 of those bans were in Florida.
There are efforts to change how decisions are made about which books libraries should stock and which section they belong in. Some advocate using a national rating system like the one used for movies.
Scholastic faced backlash for putting books dealing with race, gender and sexuality in their own optional category for middle school book fairs. It's now apologizing and working to reverse course.
Scholastic created a separate fair category for diverse books, which it says is to help schools navigate the complexities of book bans. Librarians accused the company of caving to censorship.
Most of the scrutinized books were written by or contained subject matter about people of color or members of the LGBTQ+ community, according to research by the American Library Association.
The number of bans and restrictions in the U.S. rose 33% in the last school year, according the the report. Florida had more bans than any other state.
Cobb County student organizers are working to recruit more of their peers to speak out against the school board's recent bans on certain books and classroom discussions.
Georgia's Cobb County School Board of Education voted Thursday evening to disregard a decision to allow fifth-grade teacher Katie Rinderle to keep her job.
After a parent's complaint, a school district in Utah banned the Bible from middle and elementary schools for containing "vulgarity or violence" inappropriate for the age group.
