book bans

MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient and two-time National Book Award-winner Jesmyn Ward will be speaking at Wake Forest University tonight. The conversation is part of the university’s Face to Face Speaker Forum.

Across the country, books and lessons that represent different families and identities are increasingly the target of conservative pushback — even when they're for the youngest of learners. Educators and free-speech advocates say the books and lessons caught up in these bans often simply acknowledge the existence of different identities. That's crucial, experts say, to help young children develop empathy and an understanding of themselves — especially for children whose families include people of color or LGBTQ+ relatives. Of the bans targeting picture books, about three-quarters are books that address LGBTQ+ themes and roughly half mention race, PEN America says.

Journalists from nine North Carolina newsrooms learned that over the past two years, people have brought at least 189 book challenges across the state's 115 public school districts. The reporting was timed to coincide with Sunshine Week, an annual celebration of the importance of public records, open government, and transparency.