Earn your Easy A this week by speaking out against book bans and showing your support for reading. Here’s some things you can do:

• Visit your local library.
• Check out a library book.
• Thank your librarian(s) — in person or with a handwritten note!
• And the easiest thing you can do in less than five minutes right now? Spread the word! Share this post on your social media to let people know about the rise in book bans and the importance of standing up for our freedom to read.

Book-banning extremists are loud, but we are the majority. Let’s be louder and celebrate reading on Right to Read Day, and every day!

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On April 7, 2025, we’re celebrating Right to Read Day to bring attention to the nationwide rise in book bans and laws targeting librarians and teachers, as well as cuts to library funding and programs. Book banning and censorship have no place in our democracy. No one should be afraid to read, learn, or teach.

Earn your Easy A this week by watching this short video. We’ll be sharing it on social media next week before Right to Read Day, but we’re giving you an exclusive sneak peek! We hope it inspires you to celebrate Right to Read Day with us. Next week, we’ll show you how!

The post Watch This: The Right to Read is Under Attack appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Now, in addition to those distractions, we also have the internet and social media keeping us from reading books. In 2024, 37% of American adults did not read or listen to a single book or audio book. Do you know what else is keeping people from reading? A rise in book bans!

This attack on our freedom to read has been happening for years. We’ve written about it before (here and here), but let’s take a look at where things stand with book banning now under the Trump administration, and what we can do about it.

PEN America recorded 10,046 instances of book bans in 29 states and 220 public school districts in the 2023-2024 school year. This is the third year in a row where book bans have increased in America. And that’s just the documented bans where access to books has been limited or completely removed. PEN America is also seeing a rise in “soft censorship” where schools, libraries and teachers are removing books on their own, simply out of fear.

The Trump administration is adding to this fear. President Trump has threatened to block federal funding to schools that don’t follow his executive orders to end diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and to deny the existence of trans people. We already know that books about race, racism, and LGBTQ+ characters or characters of color are disproportionately targeted by book bans. Trump’s threats and orders could limit the availability of diverse and representative books in public school classrooms and libraries even more.

Just weeks after Trump was inaugurated, the Department of Defense announced that it was removing books from the 160 schools run by the Pentagon for 67,000 children of U.S. military members stationed worldwide. That list included a children’s book written by Oscar-winning actor Julianne Moore about a girl learning to accept her freckles, elementary school materials for Black History Month, and even Vice President JD Vance’s memoir!

This followed an earlier announcement that Trump’s Department of Education was rescinding all previous guidance for schools on how to respond to book bans, removing its anti-book ban coordinator position, and dismissing 17 active or pending civil rights investigations on book bans. These actions ignore the very real threat and impact of book bans on our kids, and it probably won’t stop here.

This threat is an organized effort by extremists to control what we read and learn. As the American Library Association said in response to Trump’s Department of Education actions, book bans are real, they are cruel, and they are unconstitutional. The good news is that we can still fight this by speaking out against book bans, by showing up to support our students, teachers, and librarians, and by celebrating reading. In the coming weeks, we’ll show you how.

The post Read This: A New Era of Fighting Book Bans appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

We’ve learned that extremism cost our public schools $3.2 billion last year. Now we’re also seeing that President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon fully intend to defund and destroy the U.S. Department of Education entirely. That means our public schools can expect to lose even more money that they can’t afford.

With 97.5% of public schools experiencing some level of the extremist-driven culture wars last year, almost every one of nearly 50 million students¹ and 3.8 million teachers² in public schools has felt — or will feel — the impact of this assault. Their stories deserve to be heard.

The Costs of Conflict report includes compelling stories directly from superintendents who were interviewed. Earn your Easy A this week by downloading the full Costs of Conflict Report and giving them a look!

Want to take it one step further? Once you download the report, share it with everyone you know. We give you an easy way to share when you get your copy of the report. Let’s get loud with our support of public education!

The post Do This: Get Your Copy of the Costs of Conflict Report! appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Watch this short video to hear directly from one of the researchers, Dr. John Rogers from the University of California – Los Angeles, about what else was learned in their study.

Mainstream parents don’t want this level of conflict in our schools. We want our teachers to be able to focus on their teaching, our students to feel safe and supported, and for our schools to spend their funding on their needs, not on fighting extremism. We must speak out when politicians and other groups hurt our kids, waste our educators’ time, and waste our schools’ precious funding like this. We’ll have one more action for you to take on this next week!

The post Watch This: The Costs of Conflict appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Between 2021 and 2024, more than 300 bills were introduced in state legislatures to ban books, restrict schools from teaching about race and racism, and set restrictive policies for LGBTQ+ students. It’s all part of an extremist effort to attack our public schools with culture wars.

You’ve probably already heard a lot about this, especially if you’ve been reading our Easy A blog for awhile. And you probably know that these culture wars are hurting our kids’ mental health and taking a toll on our educators.

But a lot of us have been asking, what is the financial cost of these culture wars? Well, now we have the answer!

According to a recent report, “The Costs of Conflict: The Fiscal Impact of Culturally Divisive Conflict on Public Schools in the United States”, these culture wars cost our public schools $3.2 billion just last year. That’s right, we said $3.2 BILLION!

How is that possible? The report found that for an average-sized school district experiencing high levels of culture wars, fighting them cost $812,000 last year. Here are some more findings from the report:

• Two-thirds of the schools in the study were experiencing moderate or high levels of “culturally-divisive conflict.” Only 2.5% reported no conflict at all.
• When schools become the center of these culture wars, districts and school boards have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on:
  • Hiring lawyers and paying legal fees to fight the challenges.
  • Increased security to protect board members and educators at meetings.
  • Paying for additional staff hours spent responding to overwhelming public records requests, emails, and online disinformation.
  • Community and government relations.
  • Recruitment of teachers due to high staff turnover rates. 29% of the superintendents interviewed in the study had lost teachers due to culture wars!

We can all agree, this is not what mainstream parents want. We can think of a lot of ways that $3.2 billion could be better spent, and so did the study. Things like: hiring more counselors and teachers, upgrading supplies and technology, offering nutritious meals to all students, and providing more opportunities for kids and educators to prepare for the 21st Century.

You can learn more about “The Costs of Conflict” study on our website here. Please join us in speaking out in support of our public schools and against these divisive — and expensive! — culture wars!

The post Read This: The Costs of Conflict appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

More than 80% of Americans disagree with banning books about history or race. And a Washington Post study found that in the 2021-2022 school year, only 11 people were responsible for the majority of book bans. Book bans are being driven by a small but vocal minority, so we can stop them. And that’s exactly what we do with Book Ban Busters!

So earn your Easy A today by signing up to receive Book Ban Busters updates. We’ll keep you up to date on book bans and ways to take action. Together, we can reverse this dangerous trend.

Here are a few ways Book Ban Busters take action:

• Raising awareness by sharing information about book bans with friends and family.
• Publicly showing support for authors, educators, and librarians.
• Going to local school board and library board meetings to stay informed and ready to fight book bans if they arise.
• Voting for candidates who support the freedom to read.
• Running for a school or library board or volunteering on a campaign.
• Joining our banned book club.
• Hosting read-ins.
• Writing Letters to the Editor.
• Contacting elected representatives about legislative threats to our freedom to read.

Basically, the way we fight book bans is to organize — and that happens at the local level! Localized efforts are the most effective way to beat book bans. We win when people like you take action with the same boldness and fervor as the small groups bringing the bans in the first place. So let’s do this! 

The post Do This: The Growing Movement to Ban Books appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

According to PEN America, from 2021-2023:

• 37% of all book bans targeted books about race, racism, or books with characters of color;
• 36% targeted books with LGBTQ+ characters and themes; 8% featuring transgender characters or stories.

We read last week about how diversity in books is invaluable to students. Now hear more about this from someone who knows firsthand.

Ellen Oh is an author and founding member of We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit that strives to diversify the publishing industry. Their goal is to create a world where everyone can find themselves in the pages of a book. Ellen tells us why this is so important — even life-saving.

We Need Diverse Books has helped fuel an increase in new children’s books featuring characters of color. Twelve years ago, only 7% of children’s books published were about children of color. Now that figure is 40%. As we celebrate this, we also have to protect these stories from becoming the next targets of book bans. Next week, we’ll tell you how!

The post Watch This: The Growing Movement to Ban Books appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

It’s Banned Books Week! Since 1982, this annual event supports our freedom to read and brings attention to the growing movement to ban books. So, let’s talk about the increase in book bans and why it’s so important for us to push back.

Book bans have been around for centuries. They started when governments and religious institutions wanted to censor what they saw as threats to their authority or moral standing. We’re now seeing everyday citizens challenge our access to books in schools and public libraries, and those bans are increasing rapidly.

These modern book bans are defined as when, for any period of time, a student’s access to a book is restricted or completely prohibited. PEN America has been tracking the increase in book bans since 2021. Their latest research found that there were more than 10,000 instances of book bans in the 2023-2024 school year, which is almost triple the number in the previous year!

These recent book bans are being driven by extremist groups like Moms for Liberty. They are targeting what they consider to be controversial or objectionable content, which is usually books with LGBTQ+ or non-white characters, histories of minorities, religious or political viewpoints different from their own, or sex education. “Controversial” and “objectionable” to them is really just code for ideas and viewpoints they don’t like or don’t understand, and often involves marginalized communities. When extremists are successful in getting these stories and narratives banned, they are unjustly erasing the voices and representation of entire groups of people. That erasure has very real consequences for all children.

Book bans narrow our children’s worldview by taking away their exposure to stories about other people and places. It keeps them from exploring ideas and perspectives that are different from their own, which hinders their ability to build empathy. Book bans also teach them that it’s ok to hate and censor things you don’t agree with.

For kids in the communities whose stories are being banned, it hurts even more. When kids don’t see themselves represented, they think their stories are not worthy of being told. And when they see them banned, they think their stories are shameful. All kids deserve to see themselves and relatable characters in stories to know that they are valued and are not alone.

There’s also a financial cost to all these book bans. When books are challenged, most school districts and public libraries have a process in place to review the books and rule on the challenges. That takes extra staffing and personnel hours. For example, last year in Texas, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, school districts reported spending between $30,000-$100,000 and hundreds of full-time staff hours reviewing book ban attempts! There are better ways for this taxpayer money to be spent and for these professionals to spend their time.

All this harm is being caused by a loud but small group of people. The majority of us — more than 80% — don’t want book bans, so we also have to be loud and push back. Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore how to put a stop to this increasing trend of book bans before it gets any worse.

The post Read This: The Growing Movement to Ban Books appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

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