Reader’s Digest is now considered too extreme to read in Missouri.

In August of 2022, the Missouri State Senate was voting on legislation that would give more rights to survivors of sexual assault. Republicans in the state Senate seized the opportunity to force new language into the bill that arbitrarily banned educators from reading dozens of books to minors.

The language was so broad that it immediately forced almost 300 books off the shelves due to vague and absurd challenges to their content. These government regulations caused a broad censoring of speech through the removal of books that politicians and special interest groups object to.

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For example, Mark Twain, Margaret Atwood, Lois Lowery, and other award-winning authors vanished from library bookshelves and schools. Some of the bans went so far as to remove copies of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and the works of William Shakespeare.

The law is supposed to have an exception for books that teach art or science, but a number of counties have removed the works of Leonardo DaVinci, Michelangelo, and The Complete Guide to Drawing & Painting from Reader’s Digest.

Reader’s Digest is now considered too extreme for children to read in Missouri and state reps are using books like this as an excuse to defund libraries. We can’t let this stand, sign the petition today.