Cumberland City Council’s ban of books depicting same-sex parents from its libraries implies such relationships are unnatural or strange. What’s happening?
Play and storytelling are a crucial part of children’s cognitive development.
PixelCatchers
Beatrix Potter’s silence concerning her sources means the Brer Rabbit folktales that helped create her stories are passed over without acknowledgement or celebration.
A banned books display in a US bookshop.
Ted Shaffrey/AP
Differences over what counts as indoctrination lie behind a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in Florida. PEN America’s CEO deems book removals ‘a deliberate attempt to suppress diverse voices’.
Book bans in Ron DeSantis’s Florida have censored beloved Australian author Mem Fox – for an illustrated character’s bath. But blanket nudity bans teach children bodies are ‘inherently sexual’.
Detail of an illustration of Theodosia Okoh, who designed Ghana’s flag.
Illustrations by Denyse Gawu-Mensah/Black and Bold Queens
Children’s books implicitly shape the minds of young readers - and are covertly censored in many ways. But revising occasional words will usually not shift the values regarded as outdated in the text.
There’s a small but growing number of books for younger readers that feature main characters with disabilities.
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Edwina Preston tells why her favourite literary heroine is Seven Little Australians’ Judy Woolcot and her ‘bone-true authenticity of self’ – beating fellow tomboys Jo March and Anne Shirley.
How can you get your kids to read this summer? Research has found they respond well to reading non-fiction – so we’ve gathered 6 top non-fiction books, recommended by the kids themselves.
Blake’s cover image from The Big Friendly Giant by Roald Dahl.
Quentin Blake/Alamy
Because bias is learned from a very early age, reading and learning about diverse experiences cannot start too soon. Here are five Australian picture books that centre on queer stories.