Fascinating: lithub.com/censoring-im...
In 2009 I was working with the prison book program in Asheville, North Carolina when I got a request for shapeshifting. I was shocked and thought it was funny, until I came to realize esoteric inte…
www.thereader.org.uk do good work running shared reading programmes, some of it in prisons.
so, our experience on this topic is that most of your novels get into most prisons okay. where you have been banned, it's almost your graphic novels and it's for nudity reasons. what books are banned is really inconsistent across the US, but the one place they're always sticklers is nudity
That's horrifying! I wonder if this is a contributing factor (among many others) to high recidivism rates; they're actively discouraged from growing their imagination, which may make it harder to imagine a better life for themselves.
Horrible and unsurprising. Americans think nightmarish prison experiences "fix" inmates, despite decades of research showing that it's criminogenic and increases recidivism rates. Some still find ways to play D&D though! www.themarshallproject.org/2023/08/31/d...
For men awaiting execution in Texas, illicit games of Dungeons & Dragons became a lifeline.
Yes. I’ve heard there is higher %age of ppl w conditions like schizophrenia in the prison population. I wonder if prison psych docs have found fantasy/magic books can exacerbate conditions of some inmates, so they just blanket ban?
Fascinating indeed!
Idaho is shockingly reasonable! (This is due to end, given how our libraries and schools are under attack by book burners)
I honestly believe reading sci fi and fantasy growing up made me a better person. I read about aliens and elves, about people who change gender, the ways in which the future, or other worlds, may be different from the here and now, it expands the possibilities in the real world.
Curse of the Shawshank Redemption ? Escaping through books like Dumas' Monte Cristo?
assuming you've seen this @odavies9.bsky.social? It discusses grimoires alongside fantasy and fiction...