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IN CONVERSATION WITH EVERYLIBRARY

As part of EveryLibrary Live!, the extraordinary week of literary celebration and advocacy (September 22-27, 2024),  EveryLibrary’s Executive Director John Chrastka talks with Rebekah Modrak and Nadine Kalin, the editors of Trouble in Censorville, and freedom-to-read advocates Willie Carver, Gavin Downing, and Julie Miller.

Their “Fight for the First” Panel will air at 12pm ET on Monday, September 23, 2024. It’s part of a series that includes over 25 panels featuring 45+ authors, publishing professionals, and experts on book bans, censorship, and the First Amendment.

Modrak, Kalin, Carver, Downing and Miller are editors or contributors to the new book “Trouble in Censorville: The Far Right’s Assault on Public Education – and the Teachers Who are Fighting Back,” which documents the right-wing ideological opposition to diversity and changing social mores  that has resulted in book bans and the passing of an unprecedented number of laws that invoke the “divisive concept” premise to legitimate discrimination. Since 2020, legislation has prohibited K-12 instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation and has led to the shuttering of libraries in schools. In Trouble in Censorville, 14 public school teachers bring readers face-to-face with first-hand accounts of what it means to be living and working under these realities and how to resist attacks on the freedom to read and to think critically.

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“TROUBLE IN CENSORVILLE” BOOK LAUNCH AT LITERATI BOOKSTORE

On Tuesday, October 1, 2024 (6:30pm), Literati Bookstore will host an in-person, open-to-the-public event featuring the recently published book Trouble in Censorville: The Far Right’s Assault on Public Education – and the Teachers Who Are Fighting Back. Edited by Rebekah Modrak and University of North Texas professor Nadine M. Kalin, the book features 14 testimonials by public school teachers who describe being fired, harassed, or smeared for teaching historical truth and racial justice and for offering books by and about LGBTQ+ people. 

Their stories bring readers face-to-face with the human cost of these attacks, which range from social isolation to pent-up anger over institutional betrayal to the terrible toll on teachers’ mental and physical health. Educators predict the future of a generation of students who are told to walk out of the room in the face of discomfort and no longer have access to books or critical thinking about American society. Their stories of frontline resistance provide a battle plan for confronting censorship, rallying support, and mobilizing a grassroots defense of public schools.

The Literati event will feature readings by Modrak and local educators — Sarah Anton, a secondary English teacher, and Jeff Gaynor, an Ann Arbor School Board member — and a Q&A period with the audience.