Then came the incident in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin that’s when I knew that our message was being heard,” Herthal says.Īlong with the efforts of free speech advocates, the Mount Horeb community, too, would not stand for the censorship taking place in their community. “I’d been concerned about receiving hate mail and death threats - as Jazz’s family sometimes still does to this day - but at first there was virtually nothing. In response to the threat, book readings were cancelled and it appeared that district administrators were going to succumb to the minority’s opinion that the book would “miseducate children with what essentially amount to propaganda and mistruths.”ĬBLDF teamed up with the National Coalition Against Censorship and other free speech organizations on a letter that reminded administrators that Liberty Counsel’s threat represented a “fundamental misunderstanding of how the First Amendment applies to public schools” and to demonstrate the value the book brought to the community. In 2015, their children’s book I am Jazz,which recounted Jenning’s own experiences as a transgender youth looking to find herself within her family and community, came under attack in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, after the conservative group Liberty Counsel threatened to sue the district if the book remained in schools. In celebration of Banned Books Week, co-authors of the much-challenged children’s book I Am Jazz, Jazz Jennings and Jessica Herthel, are calling on people to get out and read-especially the books “that some closed-minded person out there wanted desperately to keep out of your hands.”īoth Herthel and Jennings are no strangers to being targeted by closed-minded people. Graphic Novels: Suggestions for Librarians.Working With Libraries! A Handbook For Comics Creators.Know Your Rights: Student Rights Fact Sheet.Raising a Reader! How Comics & Graphic Novels Can Help Your Kids Love To Read!.Adding Graphic Novels to Your Library or Classroom Collection.Kirkpatrick, NY State Court of Appeals (1973) Obscenity Case Files: Joseph Burstyn, Inc.

Des Moines Independent Community School District Obscenity Case Files: United States v.Pacifica Foundation (George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words) Obscenity Case Files: People of New York v.

I am jazz banned book