Author: Kelly Jensen

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. For those passionate about youth literature, the annual Youth Media Awards presented by librarians who are part of the American Library Association (ALA) are like the Grammys, the Emmys, and the Oscars all at once. Over the course of the last year, librarians have dedicated their time and energy to reading a LOT of books. They engage in lively discussions about the requirements of the award for which they’re reading in order to determine which books deserve to be crowned the best of…

In what is one of the cruelest policies passed in this era of rampant book censorship, and one that flies in the face of long-documented research on the tools that best reduce recidivism, Arkansas will ban all physical books, magazines, and newspapers coming into prisons for individuals starting February 1. This is the strictest ban on sending reading material to prisons in the country. Advocates worry this will launch similar efforts nationwide. “If it gets enacted in Arkansas, then Texas and other states kind of ping pong off each other when it comes to these draconian policies,” explains Kaleem Nazeem,…

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View All posts by Kelly Jensen In November 2025, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) was spared further dismantling from the Trump administration thanks to a permanent injunction granted in Rhode Island v. Trump. This is one of two federal cases that followed the…

The Supreme Court is just one place where decisions about the constitutionality of book bans may be made. There are several active lawsuits taking place nationwide worth keeping an eye on, as their outcomes can help inform thinking about whether and how the freedom to read may be established as an American right. Let’s take a look at seven cases currently in process, what they’re about, and what the implications of the rulings in these cases may be. This isn’t a comprehensive survey of current right-to-read lawsuits. But it does give a sense of who is bringing these cases to…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View All posts by Kelly Jensen “What can I do to learn about book censorship and help put a stop to it?” This question and variations thereof continue to…

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View All posts by Kelly Jensen Yesterday, the state of Utah banned three books for all public school students, bringing the total number of books banned in the state to 22. Today, the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah filed a lawsuit against the state on…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View All posts by Kelly Jensen Utah passed one of the strictest bills related to books in public schools in 2024. House Bill 29 (HB 29) allows parents to challenge books…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View All posts by Kelly Jensen In the final installment of a trilogy of posts explicitly dedicated to comics censorship, we shift our focus from the history and legacy…

The target? Comics. Last week kicked off the first in a trilogy of posts focused on comic book censorship in America. History professor and comic censorship scholar Brian Puaca talked about what made burning comics a seductive activity in post-World War II America. This week, he is back to offer a more optimistic read on comics censorship through that same period and on into our present day. Brian Puaca, Professor of History at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, reached out to me earlier this year and shared with me a project he’d been working on called the Comic Book…

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View All posts by Kelly Jensen If you haven’t been a regular listener to Hey YA, our podcast dedicated to all things young adult literature, then you may not know that we sunset the show in October after seven awesome years. But the show didn’t go…