The American Library Association (ALA) has reported that book bans have hit a record high in 2022. According to APNews, 2,500 different books were objected to last year. There were 1,858 in 2021 and 566 in 2019.
Rearing new generations to take on the world is the task of those that come before. And the books aid in this responsibility. They tell history, encourage growth, and spur conversations. However, views vary, oftentimes between educator and parent. The discussion about what knowledge should be imparted is timeless. The criteria that is used to ban has shifted from obscenity and explicit sexuality, to political and private views and ideologies. Parents have gone to school boards, police, and government officials to ban certain books they feel are inappropriate for their children. Librarians, teachers, authors, and parents all have different views. They have been clashing for decades, with questions of content never-ending and groups mobilizing on either side.
The ALA has been monitoring book ban data for the past twenty years, the history seeing its origins before the 1970s. The challenges and bans focused on obscenity and explicit sexuality, according to Middle Tennessee University. Some of those early books included Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence and Ulysses by James Joyce. The late 1970s saw challenges against books based on the ideologies expressed. Later on, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou were challenged at the request of public groups and organizations. By September 1990, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression said, “the First Amendment was in perilous condition across the nation”. Today censorship has caused authors, educators, and some parents to claim that personal rights to express are in danger.
Some parents are feeling their rights to decide what and when their child is exposed to being infringed upon. ProCon.org, a subsidiary of Britannica, reported along with rights, it is also inappropriate content. Macey France, the co-founder of the Stop Common Core in Oregon, chimed in. Her organization focuses on the mandated curriculum criteria in each state. “Opting your child out of reading a certain book doesn’t protect him or her,” she claims, “They are still surrounded by the other students who are going to be saturated with this book.” Steven Gittleson, CEO of LigthSail, reported to NBC news that the more common complaint he had heard was of the sexual content in books.
Of the top books banned in 2020, according to the ALA, one held LGBTQ+ content, two were sexually explicit, five discussed racism and anti-police views, while others contained profanity and drug use. The concern of these parents centers around possible aggressive behavior from their children from the consumption of graphic material, according to ProCon. Though the banning of these books does not inhibit the creation or reading of them, it does create a form of censorship that not everyone agrees with.
Taking books out of school and public libraries may help the book-ban-positive parents that do not want certain content, but it also impacts other parents. The New York Times reported that “others say prohibiting these titles altogether violates the rights of other parents and the rights of children who believe access to these books is important. Many school libraries already have mechanisms in place to stop individual students from checking out books of which their parents disapprove.” This continues the discussion of what should be taught and what should not. Each parent seems to believe something different.
The executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, Christopher Finan, commented on the issue, stating that this level of challenge has been unseen since the 1980s. “It’s this confluence of tensions that have always existed over what’s the proper thing to teach kids,” he said. The APNews reports the harassing and threatening of librarians. Some have had violence to fear while others, legal action. Though they are not alone in this plight. The voices of the authors banned have also entered the conversation, some facing the same threats.
A few authors that are among the most frequently banned have seen horrible backlash and terror from parents and school boards. Some of the books were Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, Jonathan Evison’s Lawn Boy, and George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir Manifesto. These authors emphasize the difference that books can make for children who have trouble discussing certain topics or seek to find literature that they can identify with.
Speaking of his own novel with USA Today, Kobabe said, “I think if I’d had a book like this, it could have taken 10 years off of my questioning and confusion and uncertainty about who I was and how I was going to fit into the world.” Jonathan Evison received serious backlash from school boards about his novel. “I started opening these messages,” he told USA Today. “and the first one was a death threat. The next one was calling me a pedophile and a groomer. And the next one was describing horrible things sexually about my daughters.” Author Jodi Picoult saw many of her books banned in one sitting as Florida made a law to review the reading materials in classrooms. Of the 92 books removed from Martin County, 20 belonged to her. In an interview with ABC, she spoke about the phenomenon. She found that there was one parent that listed her twenty. In many places in Florida “one parent can decide to pull a book from a shelf without even giving a reason for that.” She said, “And the one parent who wanted to ban all 20 of my books said on her form that she had not read the books…that some of them were adult romance, which is really interesting because I don’t write adult romance… But they do have topics like gun rights and women’s reproductive health rights and gay rights..” Some of the rights and views expressed in these books are those telling of another point of view, expressing feelings and situations that kids might be going through, some not being explicit.
“Sometimes we feel a certain way,” Johnson said, his novel All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir Manifesto number 3 on the ALA’s list of most banned books, “but we can’t express how we feel until we read somebody else going through a similar thing, and then it allows us to say, ‘This is exactly how I felt,’ One of the ways we as a society gain empathy is through learning other people’s stories from their own eyes.” Whether or not children should be learning some of these stories is a right that some parents feel they should maintain and be able to institute. Though Picoult notes that, “it’s OK for a parent to decide whether or not a book is appropriate for their own child, but it’s not appropriate for that same parent to make the decision for your child.” Thus, the battle continues with parents on both sides feeling rights being breached, librarians, teachers, and authors getting caught in the crossfire, and children breathing the resulting fumes.
With parents mobilizing in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Library Association has also decided to take action. They have joined the ALA’s national initiative Unite Against Book Bans, empowering “readers everywhere to stand together in the fight against censorship.” The campaign engages with state, local, and national efforts to fight censorship. “Together, we are a strong force for the value of libraries and the freedom to read.”, the site says. The dedicated webpage, unitedagainstbookbans.org reports 71% of voters oppose efforts to remove books from public libraries, while another 67% oppose the removal of books from school libraries. Both sides of the issue have their reasons and voices. As the fight continues to decide the appropriateness of books and topics the newest generation will see the result. Knowledge isn’t something that can be wholly destroyed and as the battle continues, hopefully a consensus can be reached that promotes knowledge while maintaining respect for what books were meant for; understanding one another, learning, and growth.
Sampan interviewed Melissa Andrews, Collection Development Manager, Melissa Andrews, Boston Public Library, carefully optimistic about the current situation in Boston.
Sampan: What political forces are you currently battling when it comes to maintaining the free expression of ideas in both public libraries and classrooms?
Melissa Andrews: We have been very lucky that we have not seen the same kinds of challenges that are happening to schools and libraries in other parts of the country. We serve patrons who read and borrow materials for pleasure or fun, but also patrons who are borrowing materials for classes. We serve a large variety of patrons with different needs and backgrounds. Not every book is for every patron, and if it was, we wouldn’t have large diverse collections.
Sampan: How long have you been working as a librarian? Has the climate of censorship and tolerance of different ideas gotten worse since you’ve started?
Melissa Andrews: I have been a librarian at the BPL for over 16 years. Our patrons request and borrow a wide variety of materials, and we have always had staff that are passionate about promoting materials that reflect our communities. Over the last few years, we have expanded the number of printed (We Are Pride, Latinx Life, Black Is, Native Lives Native Stories, and the Asian/Pacific American Heritage booklists) and online book lists we create and share. Highlighting, discussing, and sharing books is one of the best ways for patrons and citizens to discover new books. Between more avenues for self-publishing, and greater demand for diverse titles from mainstream publishing, the variety of accessible materials is greater, so in many ways things are getting better. We are seeing more books published (and requested from our patrons) that have viewpoints from both sides of the aisle, but I think that can be interpreted as a sign that the library is truly for everyone.
Sampan: What measures do you take now to evaluate new texts for consideration in your Library? Do titles need to be cleared by a committee?
Melissa Andrews: Our Collection Development Policy outlines the procedures a patron can take to have a title re-considered. We have a clear statement on Intellectual Freedom and oppose any attempts by individuals or groups to censor items in its collection. We evaluate titles under the ALA Freedom to Read and Freedom to View statements, Library Bill of Rights, and our criteria for acquisition of materials.
Sampan: Do you foresee book banning issues alleviating in the immediate future? Do you think these censorship problems come in waves that can be controlled? Do you have hope for the future? Melissa Andrews: I suspect challenges will continue; libraries have a lot of work to continue to ensure our collections, catalogs, programs, and spaces are welcoming and inclusive to everyone in our communities, and that work and change will likely continue to raise questions and some pushback.
