National Banned Book Week Amy Sarig King How To Survive Censorship

When Mac first opens his classroom copy of Jane Yolen's The Devil’s Arithmetic and finds some words blacked out, he thinks it must be a mistake. But then when he and his friends discover what the missing words are, he's outraged. Someone in his school is trying to prevent kids from reading the full story. But who? Even though his unreliable dad tells him to not get so emotional about a book (or anything else), Mac has been raised by his mom and grandad to call out things that are wrong. He and his friends head to the principal's office to protest the censorship... but her response doesn't take them seriously. So many adults want Mac to keep his words to himself. Mac's about to see the power of letting them out. Amy Sarig King writes this story from real life experience. Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic was censored in her local elementary school in the exact way as it’s described in her novel. After buying an uncensored copy at her local independent bookstore, she went to the principal to fix the problem, but was shrugged off as if she were crazy to think that censorship is wrong.