Free Expression

NCAC condemns school board for banning Sherman Alexie’s True Diary; Binc awards gift cards to marketing survey participants; Matthew Baldacci joins Scholastic as VP of marketing; Booksellers Association names new president

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo and artist Kate Russo, his daughter, are offering signed copies of Interventions: A Novella & Three Stories to indie booksellers at a significant discount.

The Annual Children’s Book Art Auction and Reception to benefit ABFFE will be hosted this year by bestselling author and illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka. The auction will be held on Wednesday evening, May 28, at BEA.

ABFFE and more than 30 civil liberties and privacy groups have sent a letter urging Congress and the president to adopt reforms limiting intelligence agencies to searching only records that pertain to people who are suspected of planning or committing illegal acts.

ABFFE has joined civil liberties and open government groups in urging President Obama to speed the release of a Congressional report on the CIA program that detained suspected terrorists in secret prisons and subjected them to coercive interrogation techniques following the 9/11 attacks.

Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, explains why this week's filing of an amicus brief in a case that will be heard by the Supreme Court in April is a particularly appropriate moment to consider the important role that booksellers play in defending free speech.

A broad range of booksellers, librarians, publishers, and organizations, including the American Booksellers Association and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, have submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the case of Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, which will be argued before the Supreme Court on April 22.

More than 30 works by leading artists will be up for auction in the lobby outside the Wi9 Author Reception on Thursday evening, January 23. The auction will include pieces by Ruth Lercher Bornstein, Ricardo Cortes, David McPhail, Tracey Campbell Pearson, Beth Peck, and Adam Rex.

The Kids’ Right to Read Project has been confronting an unusually high number of challenges to titles in libraries and classrooms around the country in 2013. In November alone, KRRP investigated three times the average number of incidents.

The school district superintendent in Driggs, Idaho, has apologized for banning Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima from the 10th grade English curriculum.

The Holiday Children’s Book Art Auction, sponsored by ABFFE and the ABC Children’s Group at ABA, closed on Tuesday afternoon, but not before hitting a new high and raising more than $10,000 to help defend the free speech rights of kids.

In response to what ABFFE President Chris Finan called “one of the most egregious cases of book banning in many years,” ABFFE joined  the Freedom to Read Foundation, the American Library Association, and several literacy and free speech organizations in filing an amicus brief in a case involving the removal of books that were used in the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson schools.

ABFFE’s Holiday Children’s Book Art Auction on eBay will end on Tuesday afternoon, December 3. Buyers are competing for more than 80 pieces of art created for children’s books,

An auction of more than 70 pieces of art created for children’s books launched on eBay at noon EST today, November 26. The Holiday Children’s Book Art Auction features many original works and high-quality prints by leading artists and illustrators.

NCAC honors Sherman Alexie; Miami Book Fair International’s 30th anniversary celebration underway; U.S. Postal Service moves into Staples stores; The Everything Store named Business Book of the Year; University Press of New England launches ForeEdge; U.S. Department of Labor asks for book recommendations; Hachette U.K. joins with NetGalley; Staff changes at Penguin Random House; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt signs with Ingram’s MyiLibrary; HarperCollins teams with Midwest Tape for on-demand audio; Book industry remains strong in Argentina