She celebrates their intelligence through warm and accessible prose. It’s about family dynamics, mental health, friendship, adult-child relationships, trust, maturity and so much more. She, too, went to the principal who shrugged the issue off.Īs important as the black rectangles are to this book, it’s not just about rectangles. Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic was censored at King’s local elementary school in the exact same way as described in Amy Sarig King’s book. If you love to read, you should read Attack of the Black Rectangles.Īttack of the Black Rectangles is born out of actual events.

If you’re a kid who wants to read books the way the author intended them to be read, then you should read Attack of the Black Rectangles. If you are an adult who cares about your child’s ability to access books in their entirety, then you should read Attack of the Black Rectangles. Mac’s about to see the power of letting them out. So many adults want Mac to keep his words to himself. He and his friends head to the principal’s office to protest the censorship… but her response doesn’t take them seriously.

Someone in his school is trying to prevent kids from reading the full story.Įven though his unreliable dad tells him to not get so emotional about a book (or anything else), Mac has been raised by his mom and grandad to call out things that are wrong. But then when he and his friends discover what the missing words are, he’s outraged. When Mac first opens his classroom copy of Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic and finds some words blacked out, he thinks it must be a mistake.

6, 2022, Hardcover, $18.99 (ages 9-12)Ī student decides to take action after discovering his school book has been censored in Amy Sarig King’s Attack of the Black Rectangles.

Attack of the black rectangles book