Author, Publisher at Odds Over Content of Talk

A popular children’s author has set off a heated discussion on Internet blogs and listservs after posting on her Web site charges that a publisher canceled her contract to appear at a national reading conference to censor her criticism of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The publisher, SRA/McGraw-Hill, has fired back, saying that the author, Patricia Polacco, is at fault, and that the planned sessions on writing children’s books were an inappropriate venue for policy discussions.

Ms. Polacco, a Union City, Mich.-based author of more than three dozen picture books and short novels for children, was hired by the McGraw-Hill Cos. to conduct workshops for teachers at the International Reading Association convention, held April 30 to May 4 in Chicago. The appearances, scheduled for the publisher’s exhibit booth, were intended to inspire teachers to take part in SRA/McGraw-Hill’s national writing contest. Winners of the contest will have their children’s stories and poems published in one of...