Uncensored

Name: Uncensored
Price: 78.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9798895570630

Educators Speak Out on Teaching in a Time of Book Bans

Jonna Perrillo, Andrew Newman

$78.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Harvard Educational Publishing Group
07 April 2026

Library & information services; Ethical issues: censorship; Secondary schools; Teaching skills & techniques; Educational: Languages other than English

Educators at the frontlines of the censorship wars share stories of survival and strategies for resistance

American educators are contending with an unprecedented wave of restrictions on reading—indeed, a majority of today’s secondary English teachers and students have less of a say over what gets read in school than at any time since the 1960s. By amplifying the voices of teachers and librarians directly impacted by this broad effort to control young people’s reading experiences, Jonna Perrillo reveals in Uncensored the true forces behind the movement and how best to fight back.

Current attacks on DEI initiatives, inclusive teaching practices, and marginalized groups have their roots in the culture wars, but they also build upon a framework of state standardization, scripted curricula, and other technocratic features of modern English Language Arts (ELA) instruction. Perrillo makes these connections clear as she shares firsthand accounts of how ELA teachers and librarians, already accustomed to externally designed and constrained instruction, are meeting the challenges of censorship in public and private K–12 schools while simultaneously devising successful strategies to preserve the right to read.

With its inspiring stories from real teachers and librarians and practical recommendations, Uncensored offers more than an encounter with illiberal interference in the classroom. It explains how educators can foster strong reading cultures and establish vital community networks to ensure meaningful, deep reading experiences continue.

By: Jonna Perrillo
Foreword by: Andrew Newman
Imprint: Harvard Educational Publishing Group
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9798895570630
Pages: 248
Publication Date: 07 April 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Jonna Perrillo is an education historian and professor of English Education at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her most recent book is Educating the Enemy: Teaching Nazis and Mexicans in the Cold War Borderlands, and her writing has appeared in the Austin American-Statesman, Boston Review, Washington Post, Slate, and Time.

Reviews for Uncensored: Educators Speak Out on Teaching in a Time of Book Bans

""A vital, illuminating, and empathetic portrait of just how far the educational censorship movement has reached into schools and libraries across the US. By giving voice to the teachers and librarians on the frontlines, Perrillo offers an essential manual for fighting back against censorship and ensuring intellectual freedom and democracy can thrive in the classroom and beyond.""--Summer Lopez, Interim Co-CEO, PEN America ""Jonna Perrillo has produced our first comprehensive, empirically grounded account of the ways that classroom instructors navigate attacks on their professional capacities and responsibilities. Her book will be an invaluable resource for scholars of censorship, and--even better--for teachers who want to resist it.""--Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of history of education, University of Pennsylvania ""Perrillo's book makes a lasting contribution to understanding the historic and modern practices of book censorship that prevent students from accessing the vast potential of story and becoming lifelong readers.""--Emily Kirkpatrick, executive director, National Council of Teachers of English