The real censorship in children's books: smiling slaves is just the half of it; Guardian, 1/29/16

Daniel Jose Older, Guardian; The real censorship in children's books: smiling slaves is just the half of it:

"On 17 January, Scholastic (who, full disclosure, published my young adult novel Shadowshaper last year) pulled the book from circulation, stating: “without more historical background on the evils of slavery than this book for younger children can provide, the book may give a false impression of the reality of the lives of slaves and therefore should be withdrawn.”

On Friday, three prominent free speech organizations – the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Pen American Center, and the The First Amendment Committee of the American Society of Journalists and Authors – condemned Scholastic’s decision to pull A Birthday Cake for George Washington from circulation; a move the group qualified as “censorship”. Their statement – which sounds more like panicked GOP candidates squalling about the rise of “PC culture” than organizations dedicated to freedom – conflates Black Lives Matter activism for equality in children’s books with the anti-immigrant cultural studies purges in Arizona and homophobic attacks on books with LGBTQ characters."