Undervalued

In a major blow to freedom of speech activists, an appellate court has ruled that Iowa can enforce Senate File 496, a law that bans books with alleged sexual content from K–12 school libraries and restricts teachers from discussing LGBTQ+ topics with students in K–6 classrooms. Translation is facing its own challenges, according to PEN America’s newest white paper, which details persistent inequities in how U.S. publishers compensate and credit literary translators. In other news, Little Free Library, Scholastic, and author Dav Pilkey are partnering to install Captain Underpants book-sharing boxes in underserved communities across the country, and Simon & Schuster plans to publish an account of the first year of President Trump’s second term this June. Over in Texas, the Irving Public Library Board is hoping to alter the city library system’s collection development policy to remove most mentions of diversity, reports Kera News. Months after eliminating its book reviews, the Associated Press is now offering buyouts to an unspecified number of its U.S.-based journalists as it pivots away from traditional newspaper journalism, per Editor & Publisher. Meanwhile, Lit Hub speaks with Caro Claire Burke about tradwives and how the cultural phenomenon inspired her debut thriller, Yesteryear. And Ronald H. Spector, whose social histories shed light on the Vietnam War, has died at 83.