Overview
When a colleague's bookstore closes due to book-banning, Andrew Laties is assigned the task of explaining how children's-book creators brought thousands of diverse books into schools and homes over the past several decades, and how today's reactionary backlash can be resisted. Revealing the perspectives of authors, publishers, educators, librarians, parents, students, and booksellers, Laties urges readers to join the battle against book-banning by launching community book festivals, by self-publishing, and by engaging in civic and journalistic activism. Laties draws on his forty years of experience in bookselling to prove that writing and publishing are unstoppable forces for personal freedom and social transformation.
Full Product Details
Author: Andrew Laties
Publisher: Rebel Bookseller
Imprint: Rebel Bookseller
Dimensions:
Width: 14.00cm
, Height: 0.60cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 0.145kg
ISBN: 9798990844858
Pages: 116
Publication Date: 01 July 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Not yet available
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.
Reviews
""At a time when the American government and right-wing organizations hypocritically claim to set moral standards for children by banning numerous books and destroying libraries and bookstores, Andrew Laties exposes their hypocrisy by recounting his struggles to maintain a sense of honesty and democracy among educators and bookstore owners. You're Telling My Kids They Can't Read This Book? is a must read for anyone troubled by the plight in America when groups of adults want to dumb down children. Laties has fought and continues to fight oppressive guardians of ignorance, and his book reveals that his fight is our fight.""-Jack Zipes, Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota ""In this slender volume, Andrew Laties provides us with a rapid-fire history of children's book publishing, the politics of book-banning, the politics of public libraries and librarians, the complicated issues surrounding censorship, and a how-to guide on launching a book fair, laced throughout with an emphatic call to action to preserve our freedom of expression at a time of unprecedented governmental attacks on it.""-Paul Gulino, author, Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach; Professor, Chapman University ""Really wonderful! Powerful, poignant with dashes of humor. Well written-the narrative barrels along-lucid yet profound. An important read in these treacherous times.""-H. Nichols B. Clark, Founding Director and Chief Curator Emeritus, The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
Author Information
ANDREW LATIES co-founded Easton Book Festival, Book & Puppet Company, Vox Pop, The Children's Bookstore, Chicago Children's Museum Store, and The Eric Carle Museum Bookstore. He shared the 1987 Women's National Book Association's Pannell Award for bringing children and books together. His Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Businesses Represent Everything You Want to Fight For-From Free Speech to Buying Local to Building Communities won the 2006 Independent Publisher Award and is available in a second edition from Seven Stories Press.
