From the Publisher
Readers, librarians, and all those books that have drawn a challenge have a brand new hero in Amy Anne Ollinger. She's a true champion and testament to how doing a good thing is the first step in finding your own courage."—Kathi Appelt, Newbery Honor winning author of The Underneath
"Ban This Book is absolutely brilliant and belongs on the shelves of every library in the multiverse."—Lauren Myracle, author of the best-selling Internet Girls series, the most challenged books of 2009 and 2011
“Quick paced and with clear, easy-to-read prose, this is a book poised for wide readership and classroom use.”—Booklist
"A stout defense of the right to read." —Kirkus Reviews
“Gratz delivers a book lover’s book that speaks volumes about kids’ power to effect change at a grassroots level." —Publishers Weekly
Kirkus Reviews
2017-06-05
A shy fourth-grader leads the revolt when censors decimate her North Carolina school's library. In a tale that is dominated but not overwhelmed by its agenda, Gratz takes Amy Anne, a young black bibliophile, from the devastating discovery that her beloved From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler has been removed from the library at the behest of Mrs. Spencer, a despised classmate's mom, to a qualified defense of intellectual freedom at a school board meeting: "Nobody has the right to tell you what books you can and can't read except your parents." Meanwhile, as more books vanish, Amy Anne sets up a secret lending library of banned titles in her locker—a ploy that eventually gets her briefly suspended by the same unsympathetic principal who fires the school's doctorate-holding white librarian for defiantly inviting Dav Pilkey in for an author visit. Characters frequently serve as mouthpieces for either side, sometimes deadly serious and other times tongue-in-cheek ("I don't know about you guys, but ever since I read Wait Till Helen Comes, I've been thinking about worshipping Satan"). Indeed, Amy Anne's narrative is positively laced with real titles that have been banned or challenged and further enticing teasers for them. Contrived at some points, polemic at others, but a stout defense of the right to read. (discussion guide) (Fiction. 9-11)
