Anh Do’s WeirDO books banned from US schools

Do, an artist, creator, Television host and comedian, came to Australia at the age of a few from Vietnam.

The 45-calendar year-old is effectively-acknowledged for his WeirDo series of children’s books, which it has been discovered have been banned in public schools in the Central York district in Pennsylvania, US in November 2020, The Australian claimed.

That’s a district covering about 5000 college students.

Do’s textbooks deal with the immigrant practical experience and are about men and women of colour, and the university board banned them after dad and mom raised fears about their “divisive” character.

In a assertion to parents at the time, the college board mentioned it experienced been worried about training materials that “may lean additional in direction of indoctrination somewhat than age-­appropriate academic content”.

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The board voted to ban all guides on the classroom assets list, and it seems the WeirDo collection obtained caught up in that as well.

The ban was only lifted in January when learners took motion, protesting ahead of classes each day employing placards to demand from customers the books be brought back again and to oppose the censorship.

Do was unaware this ban experienced happened at the time, only obtaining out just lately when a list of school ebook bans was posted by PEN The us in July. There were being 17 of Do’s guides on the list.

Do’s agent, Andrew Laing, said: “It’s remarkable. Just outstanding. Good on these children who experienced it overturned.”

Also on the banned list had been titles these types of as To Kill A Mockingbird by Pulitzer Prize winner Harper Lee I Know Why The Caged Fowl Sings by Maya Angelou and John Green’s Hunting for Alaska.

PEN issued a assertion: “Books in the US are beneath profound attack. They are disappearing from library cabinets, remaining challenged in droves, staying decreed off restrictions by university boards, legislators and prison authorities.”