Jhe Kansas City publishing powerhouse behind many of the nation’s best-loved newspaper comics — from Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side to Garfield and Peanuts — spoke up this week amid growing pressure to condemn the book bans popping across the country.
“Books are safe havens, where freedom of expression and the exchange of ideas have flourished for centuries,” said Kirsty Melville, president and publisher of Andrews McMeel Universal, whose world headquarters is in downtown Kansas City. “The book ban threatens the very essence of that freedom.”
Such efforts to restrict access to specific books — notably those on issues of sexual and racial identity — have made headlines in recent months as parents, school boards, lawmakers and conservative campaigns on social networks have revived a phenomenon not seen at such a pace for decades, according to the New York Times.
“All of us at Andrews McMeel believe that diverse and creative voices cultivate empathy, foster understanding and nurture compassion,” Melville said in a statement posted Monday on Andrews McMeel Universal’s social media accounts. “We are particularly concerned that many of the banned books are written by writers from historically underrepresented and marginalized communities.”
“Banning books doesn’t protect us,” she continued. “It limits the potential of our society.”
The threat of book bans has become increasingly clear throughout 2021, according to Jim Milliot and Ed Nawotka of Publishers Weeklywho identified the political roots of this “explosion” of challenges to free access to certain books.
“The challenges are part of an organized, localized right-wing political strategy designed to activate conservative voters,” Publishers Weekly reported. “Librarian organizations have noted that while book bans are nothing new and there are well-established policies and procedures for dealing with such challenges, it is quite another thing to deal with a organized political movement.
“Maus” by Art Spiegelman, published by Pantheon
A sample of recent challenges:
- A Flagler County, Florida school board member filed a criminal complaint with local authorities after finding copies of “Not all boys are blue— a young adult memoir detailing the trials of being a black queer boy — in school libraries in his district. (NBC News)
- In Spotsylvania County, Virginia, school board members voted to have books containing “sexually explicit” material removed from school library shelves, and two board members requested that the books be cremated. (NBC News)
- In Tennessee, the McMinn County School Board voted to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus” from an eighth-grade module on the Holocaust due to nudity and swearing. (The New York Times)
Related: Here are 50 books parents in Texas want to ban from school libraries
In December, more than 600 authors, publishers and industry groups — including Andrews McMeel Universal and counterparts like Barnes & Noble, Scholastic and Simon & Schuster — signed a statement “condemning politically motivated efforts as acts of censorship that threaten children’s education while putting the safety of librarians, teachers, school administrators, and school board officials at risk,” according to Publishers Weekly.
Click on here read the group’s statement on the book ban.
Founded in 1970, Andrews McMeel Universal is the world’s largest independent feature film syndicate and a leader in the publishing industry. The Kansas City company is also a leading calendar publisher, quirky greeting card studio, major Hollywood merchandise and entertainment licensor, and has the world’s largest comic book-based website. .
Click on here to learn more about Andrews McMeel Universal.
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