Scholastic tries to defend caving to book banning after one of its authors blasts the policy

With book-banning on the rise, Scholastic, which hosts an estimated 120,000 school book fairs across the country every year, could have fought back. Instead, it is drawing criticism for backing down to the forces of censorship.

On Oct. 6, The Mary Sue reported that Scholastic was allowing schools to opt out of including diverse books in their book fair offerings. Days later at a New York Comic Con preview party held by Graphix, a Scholastic graphic novels imprint, author Molly Knox Ostertag spoke out against that practice.

Ostertag later tweeted her remarks—which you can read below—describing them as “an earnest plea for the company with whom I have made so many books to do better.” She called on Scholastic “to not give up. To recognize your strength as a powerful company. … To be brave, and strong, like so many of the heroes of the books we make, and not to capitulate or compromise with a small, and unrepresentative group that wants to destroy any stories they personally dislike. I am asking you to be an ally to authors like myself, to the vast majority of parents who do not support book bans, and most importantly, to the kids who need these books more than any of us can imagine.”