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Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group Honors Memory of Nancy Garden with Donation to NCAC’s Kids’ Right to Read Project

NEW YORK, NY — To honor Nancy Garden, prolific author of Annie On My MindEndgame, and The Year They Burned Books, who died on June 23, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group will donate $2,500 to the Kids’ Right to Read Project (KRRP), an initiative of the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) that offers support, education, and direct advocacy to people facing book challenges or bans in schools and libraries and engages local activists in promoting the freedom to read.

Upon her passing, NCAC Executive Director Joan Bertin said, “Nancy Garden’s groundbreaking novel, Annie On My Mind, first published in 1982, introduced literature on LGBT themes to a generation of young readers. Not everyone was pleased, however. In 1993, copies of the book were burned in Kansas City to protest the presence of a book about a lesbian relationship in the high school library. Garden became an outspoken defender of the First Amendment rights of young readers. Her voice will be missed: 30 years later, we are still witnessing attacks on LGBT-themed literature. Just this month, the South Carolina legislature voted to punish two universities for assigning books with LGBT content. Nancy’s courage in fighting for the rights of authors and readers, along with her body of work, is a lasting legacy.”

Bertin added, “We are grateful to Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for remembering Nancy in this way, and for supporting a cause that meant so much to her.”

The Kids’ Right to Read Project (KRRP) is a National Coalition Against Censorship signature project that is supported by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, Association of American Publishers and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Celebrating its 40th anniversary, NCAC promotes freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression and opposes censorship in all its forms. Our diverse coalition of over 50 national organizations, representing the artistic, educational, religious, and labor communities, join together in the interest of protecting First Amendment rights. Learn more about current campaigns at http://ncac.org.

Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group comprises Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, Feiwel and Friends, First Second, Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, Priddy Books, Roaring Brook Press, and Square Fish. These imprints are home to award-winning, New York Times bestselling authors including Madeleine L’Engle, Natalie Babbitt, Roald Dahl, Jack Gantos, Nancy Tillman, Catherynne M. Valente, Marissa Meyer, Paul Pope, Gene Luen Yang, Eric Carle, Leigh Bardugo, Lane Smith, Nick Bruel, Erin E. Stead, Philip C. Stead, and hundreds more popular authors and illustrators.

Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group is proud to publish many of the classics of children’s literature including A Wrinkle in Time, Tuck Everlasting, The Black Cauldron, A Cricket in Times Square, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, and The BFG, as well as popular new classics Speak, A Sick Day for Amos McGee, Dead End in Norvelt, On the Night You Were Born, and Bad Kitty.

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