Texas, Textbooks, and Tango Makes Three: Censorship in Children’s Literature

Rebekah Bonner

The Right to Read

The freedom of speech, without the right to receive ideas, would create a barren

marketplace indeed of sellers and no buyers.-Justice Brennan, 1965

Hello class, today we will be discussing…

• American Exceptionalism• The supremacy of capitalism• The right to bear arms• Limited government• Christian values• The Moral Majority

We will not be discussing….

• Separation of church and state • The Civil Rights Movement• LBGT issues• Women• Minority figures• Evolution• Global warming

Who would you ask about the Civil War?

Your dentist or a history professor at Princeton?

Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it -Edmund Burke

And Tango Makes Three

ALA’s Position on Censorship While we firmly support the right of every reader to

choose or reject a book for themselves or their families, those objecting to a particular book should not be given the power to restrict other readers’ right to access and read that book. As members of a pluralistic and complex society, we must have free access to a diverse range of viewpoints on the human condition in order to foster critical thinking and understanding. We must protect one of the most precious of our fundamental rights – the freedom to read.

-Barbara Jones, director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom

This is my son Aidan.We read…• Where The Wild Things Are• The Giving Tree• SkippyJon Jones• Where the Sidewalk Ends• All the World• Tuesday• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs• No David!• Captain Underpants• The Napping House• King Bidgood’s In The Bathtub• Flotsam• Jumanji• Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!