We Are Stronger Than Censorship program partner AmazeWorks is creating a free discussion guide for each of the twenty titles in the Sep 2024-Aug 2025 cohort.
Stella Brings the Family by Miriam B Schiffer
Stella Brings the Family tells the story of a young girl with two dads facing Mother’s Day—reflecting the diverse families children live in. It earned starred reviews and media praise from The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and others, and was selected as a Book of the Year by A Mighty Girl and Bank Street College. Stella Brings the Family has been targeted by book bans nationwide, becoming a focal point of the freedom to read movement when one Alabama book event inspired a protest and counterprotest, and later when a Tennessee school canceled its planned reading after pressure from a local Moms for Liberty group.
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Michelle Obama: Political Icon by Heather E. Schwartz (Lerner Publishing Group) Lerner shared about this book being challenged: “We were so dismayed to see Michelle Obama: Political Icon on a list of challenged books because it’s a straightforward biography of a newsworthy figure for elementary-aged readers. It’s hard to imagine that someone would object to a factual biography of a former First Lady. This kind of book challenge leads to soft censorship, which is so dangerous to the future of a free press and a free society. Parents have the right to be informed about what their own children are reading, but they should not have the right to prevent other children from reading newsworthy books.”
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