Children's Books discussion
Banned Books: discussions, lists
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Discussion of censorship, equity, and other concerns.
Mod
This is EXACTLY like Germany in 1933, and frankly ANYONE supporting Trump is at best dangerously part of the problem (and let's face it, that the only Republican candidate to have actively tried to call out Donald Trump is Doug Christie is even more horrible).
And on the other hand, even if Trump does not end up on top in 2024, ALL of the Republican hopefuls are dangerous regarding basic freedoms and that this should pertain to everyone and not just to an elitist group of Fascists.
From what I hear, Trump is fighting a losing battle. A few states are trying to block his nomination because the 14th Amendment forbids convicted criminals from running.In 31 states, Washington, D.C. forced sterilization is illegal.
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This list is incomplete though.
Back to the kids and education and booksGroups question Charleston Co. School Board meeting on superintendent
The National Action Network accused members of the Charleston County School Board Monday of working to fire the district’s newly-hired superintendent.
The Rev. Nelson B. Rivers III, the vice president of religious affairs for the National Action Network, called an end for what he called “racist attacks” on Dr. Eric Gallien, who became the district’s new superintendent on July 1.
Rivers said they were alerted by “several groups” of the plan to terminate Gallien. He also alleged some board members are “attempting to eliminate the most effective and equitable curriculum” in the district’s history.
“An apparent attempt to end historic academic achievement of black and brown Charleston County School District students the discriminatory actions will not go unchallenged,” Rivers said. “We need to stop this now. They’re going to review the superintendent’s contract. What is there to review? You signed the contract. You recruited him. And you voted publicly to give him the contract.”
Rivers alleged that the school board wants to be the superintendent for the district.
Millicent Brown, a civil rights activist who was one of the 11 students who racially integrated Charleston County Schools, said one of the reasons they fought to integrate schools in 1963 was that Black families’ tax dollars were going to pay for white students’ education, but that Black families were not benefitting from that education.
“We are saying, we are taxpayers. The way the people on this school board are acting is not in line with the wishes of the majority of the people and we’re not going to let you forget that,” she said.
Over the weekend, four Charleston County School Board members announced plans for a news conference to raise concerns Monday about a special called meeting that is set to focus on the contract of the district’s new superintendent.
Board members Courtney Waters, Darlene Dunmeyer-Roberson, Daron Lee Calhoun II and Dr. Carol Tempel called a news conference for Monday at noon. The four claimed in a news release the “Moms for Liberty faction of the board” called the meeting but did not allow the rest of the board to be “privy to the purposes of the meeting.”
The members claimed there was “a lack of transparency” over what they called a “secretive special called meeting.” That meeting is set to take place at approximately 5:15 p.m. Monday after the school board’s Committee as a Whole meeting.
None of the four board members who sent the release spoke at the news conference.
https://www.live5news.com/2023/09/11/...
Carver County, Minnesota library board to consider removal of Gender Queer: A MemoirThe library board has never before considered removal of a book, but will take the unusual step Tuesday amid a national rise in requests to remove books, mirrored in several local libraries.
The Carver County Library Board of Advisors is set to discuss Tuesday a library user's request to yank from the shelves the book "Gender Queer: a Memoir" — a graphic novel that tells the non-binary author's coming-of-age story.
The library board has never before considered removal of a book, according to library director Jodi Edstrom, but will take the unusual step Tuesday amid a national rise in requests to remove books, mirrored in several local libraries. "Gender Queer," by author Maia Kobabe, has become the most banned book in the United States, with conservative groups labeling its content obscene.
"We have seen, nationally, a significant rise in book challenges since the start of the pandemic," said J.R. Genett, deputy director of the Hennepin County Library system, who also works with the American Library Association on intellectual freedom initiatives.
Nationally, Genett said, the American Library Association tallied more than 1,200 attempts to remove books from libraries in 2022, the highest number since the association started counting.
Challenges used to be more often about violent content, Dakota County library director Margaret Stone said, but now are more often made about books that deal with sexual orientation and gender identity, or books that deal frankly with race.
"When I first became director [in 2016] we had one or two a year," she said. "We had three at the last meeting."
In a scene repeated across the country over the last two years, sometimes with the backing of conservative organizations like Moms for Liberty, a Bloomington school board meeting saw several people reading passages about sex from books they wanted removed from school libraries. On Monday, more than 100 people spoke for and against the books' removal, which centered largely on books with themes of gender identity and sexuality.
Speakers who advocated to keep books on the shelves said they did not want their children's choices limited by others. In particular, speakers said, it was important to have books that address gender identity and sexuality available because children and teenagers wrestling with their own gender identities and figuring out their sexual orientations are looking for language to help express their feelings, and stories to represent and guide them.
Those who have sought to ban books have said such stories should not be in libraries. At the Carver County library board meeting last month, library patron Erin Busse showed pictures to board members from the comic book-like novel and asked if they thought the pictures were appropriate for children.
Removal requests typically begin with a conversation between a patron who objects to a work, and library staff who talk about why that book is on the shelves.
Stone said the one-on-one discussion at the library desk is the most important part of the process.
"It's important to have the opportunity to question," she said.
If a patron still does not agree that a book has a place in a library's collection, they can fill out a form to request the book be "reconsidered," and the form will be reviewed by some combination of the library staff and board, who make a final decision.
Forms to request a book's removal typically ask if the person making the complaint has read the book in its entirety. In Carver County, the board members asked Busse if she had read "Gender Queer."
"I have not sat down and read the book. I don't know what the words are. I only know the pictures," Busse said in August.
Genett said part of the library's role is providing access to lightning-rod books. For example, she said, when the estate of Dr. Seuss decided to stop publishing some lesser-known titles because of racist tropes, Genett said Hennepin County libraries kept the books on the shelves.
"Our hold lists went through the roof," she said, as a rhetorical storm gathered around the Dr. Seuss books a few years ago. "People wanted to learn about what was so controversial."
The library has seen calls to remove Bill Cosby's books after he was convicted of sexual assault, Genett said, but the books are still on the shelves. The library even carries Hitler's "Mein Kampf."
"We have never gotten rid of a book," Genett said. "We always keep them because there are valid reasons."
https://www.startribune.com/carver-co...
FAIRHOPE, Ala. (WKRG) — In a city council meeting held Monday night in Fairhope, residents and parents spoke out about books that some say are inappropriate that are on the young adult shelf at the library.A crowded auditorium with people one by one going up to the podium to voice their opinions and concerns about 12 books that are in the teen section in the Fairhope Public Library, portraying sexual content.
Brian Disanger filed the complaint. He represents the Faith, Family Freedom Coalition of Baldwin County.
“What we are asking is for these books to be moved from the children and teens section, into the adult section,” Dasinger said. “If the adults want to go and check these books out and give them to their children then I guess they can do that, but I would never give that graphic content to my kids.”
This is the list of books that are asked to be reviewed:
All Boys Aren’t Blue, by George Johnson
Beyond Magenta, by Susan Kuklin
Doing It, by Hannah Witton
Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe
It Doesn’t Have to Be Awkward, by Drew and Paulina Pinsky
Queer There and Everywhere, by Sarah Prager
The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas
The Sun and Her Flowers, by Rupi Kaur
Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard, by Alex Bertie
Tricks, by Ellen Hopkins
https://www.wkrg.com/baldwin-county/f...
From Harper's Bazaar which is kind of weird but OK... Eight Authors on How It Feels to Have Their Books Banned
The writers of America’s most frequently banned books talk about the threat to creativity and democracy
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture...
and Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Refusing to Censor Myself
A children’s book author was asked to rethink how to explain the painful, complicated story of Japanese internment camps. What she did next was astonishing.
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture...
Podcast The New York Times: Opinion | America's Top Librarian on the Rise of Book Banshttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/op...
Book decisions are local, LGBTQ representation needed, says Alabama library service directorThe Alabama Public Library Service administers state and federal funds to libraries across the state. Last year, APLS received nearly $13 million in state funds – about $5.5 million of which went directly to local libraries.
The service helps train local librarians and aims to ensure all libraries are providing quality services, but it’s typically up to local branches to screen books and handle any concerns.
Pack said calls for increased censorship in libraries are not unique to the current political climate, but that parents should ultimately determine what is appropriate for their child.
“There will always be some type of censorship going on in libraries over something that someone does not feel as appropriate for their community or their child. And particularly when we’re dealing with children,” said Pack.
“I agree with Governor Ivey that children should be able to use the library and encourage them to read because that’s a place where they can read anything they want to read and have a wide assortment of books and opinions. However, I think there is the parental guidance that is needed in a library with the parents deciding what is appropriate for their child to read.”
Pack said it’s important for libraries to strike a balance and allow children from all backgrounds to see their families and experiences represented in books too.
https://www.al.com/news/2023/09/nancy...
Breaking news I missed but need to follow up on:THE U.S. SENATE HELD A COMMITTEE HEARING ON BOOK BANS 10 AM Washington, DC time today
on September 12th at 10 am Eastern. A live video will be available on the the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary website.
Emily Knox, the Board President of the National Coalition Against Censorship, will be testifying about the increase in book bans in recent years and how it affects democracy and education as well as impedes on First Amendment rights.
Knox urges the subcommittee to act to fight book bans, saying,
“Book Banning has created a perilous challenge to our Constitutional Rights, which promises our freedom to choose materials for ourselves and our families. We should also consider the harm that the act of banning materials is having on youth, educators, librarians, families, and diverse communities across our nation as they fight for access to materials that mirror their cultures and experiences. I hope that our nation’s leaders will understand that each book removal equals a profound loss of educational resources needed to understand the complex world surrounding us.”
Watch the video! download testimonies
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/comm...
Lindsay Graham believes book banning is OK if done peacefully by school boards but it's not the federal government's job to take over libraries. (He went off on a tangent about migrants and border crossing, drugs and terrorists.) He doesn't think the advocates on both sides should shut up but taxpayers and parents should have a voice in what books are in the library. Um no. Trust the librarians!
I skimmed the testimony of Max Eden
Research Fellow American Enterprise Institute but couldn't stomach it. He's one of those who tells himself it's not a ban if it's on Amazon or the library shelves and if you can't read it out loud then it should be removed.
Once again people Gender Queer: A Memoir is not a children's book! It is an adult memoir with crossover appeal to teenagers. It is not in your elementary schools!
I refused to even listen to Nicole Neily, President
Parents Defending Education Arlington, VAbecause she can't see the correlation between what she wants and Nazi Germany.
HEARTBREAKING testimony from a queer youth from Texas! THEY do see the correlation, also being a Jewish person in Texas. Some of their comments:
"Censorship erases our social identity, and in result, censorship erases our humanity. Decades before the Holocaust, a German poet wrote, "wherever they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn human beings." When the Katy school district began targeting Art Spiegelman's Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History I could not fathom that depictions of cartoon mice, walking naked to Nazi gas chambers, were considered "pervasively vulgar" by the book's challengers. My ancestors fled from Eurasia because of religious persecution against Jewish identity, and as a religious minority in Texas, it has never been easy. I have faced too many antisemitic remarks in school to remember, and classmates have told me the Holocaust does not exist.
The censorship of Holocaust education erases my culture and identity from the narrative before it was even sufficiently there. When my peers cannot name a single Jewish person they know, media representation is where they learn about us, and often, it is dominated by stereotypes and caricatures. Books like Maus teach students an accurate reflection of Jewish identity. If a classmate of mine knew the real extent of the Holocaust, maybe they would have thought twice about their actions.
Maybe they would have thought twice about spraying cologne in my face. He said he was "gassing the Jew." "
"Last year, a parent filed a police report against Mike Curato's Flamer a novel about a biracial and effeminate Boy Scout who is bullied and traumatized by toxic culture. The book is based on the author's experience, but the book also illustrates my experience. I saw myself in the story, having gone through the same harassment in middle school.
After so many years, I came to recognize that I was not alone. I was traumatized and felt I simply did not belong, but I was wrong. Toxicity does not belong, and Flamer gave me words for it. Unfortunately, this book was banned, along with many others with LGBTQ+ themes, leaving many queer students unable to find themselves represented in our school libraries. Censorship policies bar students from age-relevant materials, leaving them unable to realize how their actions could traumatize others with unique experiences unfamiliar to them. Local police responded to the parent's report by entering a high school library to remove the book. In history, the Gestapo secret police force in Nazi Germany acted alarmingly in the same fashion. . I could not believe my community was facing similar tactics of intimidation and fear mongering that my ancestors fled from across the world to escape. When, may I ask the nation, will I need to flee for my safety? "
" In Katy, they have even banned children's books like Wacky Wednesday Wacky Wednesday: English picture books for children by Dr. Seuss and No, David! for comical reasons. "
We cannot stand for viewpoint discrimination that contradicts our First Amendment principles and targets the most vulnerable students. We must ensure library review policies nationwide protect literature from ideological scrutiny against identity, as affirmed by the Supreme Court, and we must hold accountable any effort to remove books from library collections. We need research and oversight, not blanket permission to remove "Pride sections" from libraries like they voted on in my school district."
"Libraries are for learning about oneself through the lens of literature. Libraries are not for certain people to challenge identities they disagree with, at the expense of the broader community. Censors create silence when they diminish our education, deplete our libraries, deprive students of our rights, and discredit educators. "
Emily Knox also gives a lot of good testimony as a Black woman and daughter of a librarian.
Mod
So because Brian Disanger does not want his offspring to read these books, no teenagers should also have the right to sign them out. Typical DICKTATOR.
Manybooks wrote: "So because Brian Disanger does not want his offspring to read these books, no teenagers should also have the right to sign them out. Typical DICKTATOR.."His group, Moms for Liberty, Mama Bears and all the rest- that's their m.o. They want ALL books they object to removed from the library to "protect the children." Yet- they don't co-parent with the government when it comes to vaccines and masks. There's a whole list of book reviews on their right-wing censorship group sites and the censors take from those reviews and just try to ban them. They read excerpts out of context at school board meetings over and over to "prove" the library has pr0nography and should BAN those books. It plays out over and over in school districts and public libraries in more than half the states in the U.S. and some communities in Canada and to a lesser extent the rest of the English speaking world.
At the library today I saw some familiar titles on display plus other diverse booksAlma and How She Got Her Name
Call Me Max
Dreamers (Spanish edition)
not on the official lists but I suspect they probably would be if they were in more libraries.
Beautifully Me
Elizabeti's Doll
My Name Is Yoon
This Is Me: A Story of Who We Are and Where We Came From
I Am Me
Lots more news came through last night. Update on the Samuels Library in Front Royal Virginia. They're going to try to reach a compromise. This won't go well, I promise you. The censors are not happy until they have their own way. https://news.yahoo.com/virginia-libra...
Heading slightly north to Carroll County, MD- they're actually considering banning books in schools. 1 guess as to who is leading the charge? I read and loved Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West but it's not a kids' book. It may appeal to certain teens but I don't think the book is that popular anymore. There is one part that's graphic and totally weird and unnecessary. One part! Then there's adultery and some violence. The sequel is way worse in graphic content. Ironically, the whole thing is about the Wizard controlling everyone in Oz! Animals (talking animals) are taken away and killed or turned back into animals to silence them. They try to silence Elphaba but she's a bad ass and doesn't go for that! (The musical's first act follows the book, the second act goes off base a lot drawing more from the Oz books than Wicked books).____________________________
"Carroll County Public Schools are looking into more than 50 books that some parents believe should be banned. The books have already been pulled from school libraries.
The school board's re-consideration committee will review up to five books a month. The district said the public will be allowed to weigh in.
Administrators said they expect plenty of parents to be speaking out on the list of books, starting at this Wednesday's board of education meeting.
The head of the Carroll County chapter of Moms For Liberty told 11 News why her organization is so concerned about some of the books on the list, which she calls "sexually explicit."
"People have said how you can define p___raphy and what's the answer there? I know it when I see it. It's content that's so explicit and really detailed that we could not read it at school board meetings, and if we had read passages, there are going to be people in the meeting who get very offended," Kit Hart said.
Some of the books being considered for a ban are "A Clash of Kings," "Sex is a Funny Word," "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," "House of Earth and Blood" and "It Ends With Us."
Even Carroll County parents who welcome the book review believe the district needs to be fair about the process.
"Of course, I recognize that not every book is suitable for every age group and some books may require extra care and context in how they're presented, but banning books outright risks losing valuable opportunities for learning and dialogue," said Amanda Jozkowski, a committee chair with the Freedom District Elementary School PTA.
The public has the right to appeal those books it believes are questionable. The superintendent and school board will have the final say.
https://www.wbaltv.com/article/book-b...
The list:
https://htv-prod-media.s3.amazonaws.c...
Might be behind a paywall so I'm copying the most relevant bits or you can watch the entire hearing above.'Don't give an inch on this': Lawmakers argue over book bans in heated hearing
Much of the focus Tuesday was on the rights and responsibilities of parents in the education of their children.
President of Parents Defending Education Nicole Neily, of Virginia, testified before the Senate committee Tuesday about her own frustration.
“It is not evil to want to be involved in your child's education,” Neily said. “Every time a parent is falsely accused of wanting to ban a book because of a reasonable concern about subject matter appropriateness, neighbors are pitted against each other.”
But other witnesses disagreed. A second-year student at Brandeis University, Cameron Samuels on Tuesday said students are the top stakeholders in education and need more of a voice on the issue of books being removed from schools.
In their opening statements, Samuels described their experience as a high schooler in Katy, Texas, standing alone in a school board meeting, facing a room full of adults and speaking out against book bans for their classmates.
Democratic senators, including committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on Tuesday argued parents’ rights only extend to their own children.
And some witnesses agreed. Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias told Durbin and other committee members he “could never imagine” telling another parent what their child should be allowed to read.
“Book banners say they want 'local control,’” Giannoulias said. “What's more local than controlling what takes place in your own household?”
Ranking member Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., later pushed Giannoulias on his statements, asking the father of three, “Are you telling taxpayers of this country to shut up?” [Yes and to trust the librarians and teachers to do their jobs.]
Hailing DeSantis and his education policies as an example, Graham said governors and local leaders, along with parents, have a right to ensure “agendas are not being pushed” on children.
“Don’t give an inch on this,” Graham said during the hearing. [Actually he told that to the young person too. Keep fighting. Don't be silent.]
While targeting content taught to kids has become a growing part of the GOP’s platform, several Republican senators and their witnesses Tuesday downplayed the issue of book banning.
“To put it bluntly, books aren't being banned,” said Max Eden, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who testified at the hearing.
“What this issue is really about (is) the provision of s__ally explicit material to children by public employees,” he added.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. :“You come here, and you say censorship is bad,” Kennedy said to some of the witnesses. “And of course it's bad. But the obvious response is, okay, here are the books we're talking about.” [He read excerpts [book:Gender Queer: A Memoir|42837514] and All Boys Aren't Blue out of context during the public hearing.]
The scene Kennedy read from Johnson's book's refers to sexual abuse, not an erotic moment, said Samuels who has read both of the books Kennedy cited.
"That scene, which makes up just a page in the entire book, illustrates the most difficult part of George M. Johnson's life," Samuels told USA TODAY. "They are sharing this as an experience they had but learned from and want others to be aware of and know that they're not alone ... This very censorship against their book will silence the most vulnerable students."
Neily and Eden said bans or restrictions only sought to protect young children from inappropriate materials. But such fears, Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill. said, are “a distraction from the real challenge,” which includes a disproportionate number of banned books about sexuality or gender expression.
“No one is advocating for sexually explicit content to be available in an elementary school library,” he said. “Every student deserves access to books that reflect their experiences and help them better understand who they are.”
Neily volleyed back later in the hearing that Durbin and other Democrats’ arguments were the real distraction.
“Pretending that objections to minors accessing explicit sexual content is a threat to liberty and literature is a straw man,” she said.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...
Heading way deep south back to Alabama, another community is jumping on the censorship bandwagonhttps://www.alreporter.com/2023/09/12...
A campaign to censor certain books in the teen sections of Alabama libraries has moved to Fairhope, with numerous members on both sides of the aisle speaking out at a city council meeting Monday.
The meeting echoes of the book challenges in Prattville, albeit this movement appears to have burst out all at once instead of a steadier buildup over several months.
The group that started in Prattville began calling itself “Clean Up Prattville” sometime over the summer, and now has transitioned into “Clean Up Alabama” as a statewide organization seeking to change the policy of the Alabama Public Library Service and co-opt a 2023 bill to include jail time for librarians who give LGBTQ+ books to minors.
After more than an hour of public comment, Fairhope city council members hinted at the same thing that Prattville city council members had.
“Quite honestly, we don’t have any input on what the library carries as books,” Council President Jay Robinson told a citizen concerned about protecting the library. “The library has a board … A request was made to me to put this on the agenda, and my response was this is not a city council issue; this is a library issue. The library has a board and I would expect everybody who has expressed an opinion tonight will express that opinion to the board to make that decision … While we appreciate everybody being here and expressing their opinion, it doesn’t make it a city council issue.”
Brian Dasinger of Faith Family Freedom Coaltion took the mic first to explain to the council his opposition to some books in the teen section of the Fairhope Public Library.
Dasinger emphasized that his group “doesn’t want to ban books” and touted the now-familiar line that moving the books from the young adult section to adult does not amount to censorship.
But in addition to the content of challenged books, Dasinger expressly asked the library board to fire teen librarian Allyson Cooper Russell due to her personal political beliefs. [On her personal Facebook she liked content supporting mandatory masking, the LBGTQ movement, Black Lives Matter, pro-abortion and "other Marxist ideologies" according to Dasinger.]
Anne Johnson, chair of the Fairhope Library board of trustees, said the recent spate of challenges “kind of feels like a coordinated and targeted attack on the library.”
“Many of these books are for young adults and the request is to move them from the teen section to the adult section, or otherwise sequester them in the library; thus rendering them inaccessible to their primary audience,” Johnson said. “This is a form of censorship … No one person or group has the right to dictate what books and information have access to. This is a form of censorship … The Fairhope library board is unanimous in supporting the right to read for all Fairhope citizens.”
His wife Amanda Dasinger proceeded to read aloud certain excerpts, self-censoring words by spelling them out.
Randall Wirght, president of the Friends of the Fairhope Library, said “books on controversial and challenging topics create bridges for difficult conversations with parents and trusted adults like the librarians at our library.”
“Efforts to remove or reposition books that one person does not like cannot be approved,” Wright said. “Each of us has the right to not read a book we personally find objectionable. And as a parent, I had the right to make those decisions for my daughters when they were young. Those were my choices, but my decisions and choices cannot, and should not, be forced on another parent.”
Wright pointed out that the library’s policy on challenging books has been in place for 20 years and gives patrons the right to challenge a book in good faith.
“When we censor, we discourage open discussion instead of building the capacity to think for ourselves,” Wright said. “And if the democracy this country was founded on is to survive, it must develop citizens who can think for themselves.”
Charles Wilson, whose wife Carol spoke earlier during the session, dismissed a Facebook post claiming that “the clean up crew was coming today to ban CRT and to ban LGBTQ books.”
“That is a falsehood that was promoted online, Facebook, by a Fairhope public library employee,” Wilson said. “It made me mad because that’s not why we’re here … A lot of folks like smut and pornographic, it’s a big industry … The library is not a place for smut for children.” Carol Wilson referenced BookLooks, a book rating site created by Moms for Liberty member Emily Maikisch, according to business filings. According to a report from a far-right outlet, a Baldwin County resident just started a Moms for Liberty chapter in the county in August.
The ratings site has also been used extensively in the 48 book challenges at the Prattville library, even in cases in which the rating system seems to agree that the books are acceptable for teen audiences.
Carol Wilson, a former library board trustee herself, said that she took issue with the library requiring the challenger of a book to fully read the book to understand its context, arguing that the library does not read each book it places on the shelf, but relies on outside sources.
“My consideration in moving forward to read these books was one I have no interest in reading smut,” Wilson said. “If I subjected myself to read the entire content of the book and filed a reconsideration form, the request to relocate the books o the adult section would more than likely be denied based upon the library’s policy of diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Wilson echoed the claim that the books have material “that may be considered obscene according to federal law.”
Dev Wakely told the council there is a slippery slope ahead. "What you hear from Mr. Dasinger is that these books have ‘little to no value’ and that these books are ‘obscene under federal law’—both of those things are, of course, false—but what they are is the precursors to the real book bans; what these folks are setting up in the long run.”
The legal standards for obscenity and p____phy, Wakeley said, “are pretty well set.”
Several students from Bayshore Christian School spoke against the challenged books. McKenna Durnin referenced several “children’s books” that she considered sexually explicit and “borderline pornographic” including Genderqueer, Flamer, Let’s Talk About It … and many others. “When it reaches the point that these books are becoming visually explicit, or seeming as thought they belong in a high school anatomy book more than 4- to 8-year-olds, we have a problem.” Each one of these books is recommended for 14- to 18-year-olds, not 4- to 8-year-olds. High school students who would theoretically be viewing a high school anatomy book would likely also be 14 to 18 years old.
“When parents take their children to the library, they shouldn’t have to worry about protecting their innocence,” Durnin said.
Durnin also said removing the books does not violate the First Amendment because the books could still be purchased from bookstores or on Amazon.
“There was a time when adults who gave minors access to obscene materials were determined to be sexual predators subject to criminal prosecution,” said Bayshore senior Carter Frego. “So what constitutes obscene or pornographic material—or in the vernacular, smut?”
Frego then spoke about“the Miller test,” a three-prong system to determine what constitutes obscenity and pornography.
“Some of the books that are currently in the library may, potentially, fail this test,” Frego said.
Frego listed books he thought may fail the test: Boy Toy, Doing It, The Female of the Species, The handmaid’s Tale: A graphic novel, The Hate U Give, Last Night at the Telegraph Club “and many others.”
David Gespass, who identified himself as a civil rights lawyer, said all the council has heard is “opinions and accusations.”
“The point is that speech has to take place where it matters,” “If these books are removed from the young adult sections then they are being removed from the place where their target audience is,” Gespass said. “That is suppression; that is a violation fo the Fisrt Amendment regardless … The question becomes ‘What about people that can’t afford to order books on Amazon?’ That is what the library is for.
Sadly, the ImagineIF Libraries will forgo Banned Books Week celebrations under board guidancehttps://dailyinterlake.com/news/2023/...
Board Chair David Ingram said trustees have distanced themselves from the American Library Association since voting to leave it in December 2021. The Montana State Library broke away from the association this summer, citing similar reasoning — that the group allegedly promotes “Marxists politics.”
“They kind of control the narrative for that event,” Ingram said of the national association. “And my sense was that the board was not excited about celebrating it and would rather focus on issues like freedom to read and literacy, and things that were a little less divisive, from my perspective. So the board can redirect me in their desires, but that’s my sense at the moment.”
Trustee Doug Adams said that the American Library Association’s influence on Banned Books Week aside, he believes the celebration is too divisive.
Asked about how the board came to the conclusion to forgo Banned Books Week festivities, Ingram said he based his decision on his observations of how other trustees feel about it and the American Library Association.
In September 2022, trustees responded to a book challenge for “Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness” by Anastasia Higginbotham by creating a parent resource section. Parenting books and other children’s books dealing with difficult topics, such as grief and divorce, are now shelved in the same section. There is no age limit and children do not need a parent present in order to check out a book from the parent resources section.
ImagineIF Director Ashley Cummins said she’s always celebrated Banned Books Week, but with the recent challenges at the library it brings back difficult feelings for many.
“We've had a little bit of a complicated history here and we've come through the other side of it with all of our collections remaining intact,” Cummins said. “So I can see how celebrating it at this time could potentially bring up some of those old feelings. And we're not trying to do that, we're trying to move forward.”
She said their day-to-day work at ImagineIF shows that they are against censorship and support patrons’ “right to read.”
In Sacramento, Calif. a Rocklin school board president told teachers to stack union with ‘more faith-based site reps’Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-...
More bomb threats in Chicago area libraries! Even Lindsay Graham said violence is not the answer. _____
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local...
Numerous libraries around the Chicago area have been closed due to bomb threats on Tuesday, according to police.
The Harold Washington Library in Chicago was the subject of one threat, according to Total Traffic. Police activity has been reported at Van Buren and State Street, and an investigation remains underway.
Police in suburban Aurora have also shut down downtown streets after a reported bomb threat against the city's public libraries Tuesday afternoon.
According to authorities, the threat targeted the library in the 100 block of South River Street, with officers currently evacuating workers and closing down streets in the area.
Police have deployed officers to all three libraries in the community after the threats, according to officials.
Another threat was relayed to the Addison Public Library. Police there say that no explosive was found, and the building was safely evacuated.
Evanston police also responded to a bomb threat at their public library, but "no threat was substantiated," police said.
Finally, Schaumburg Township District Libraries are closed for the remainder of the day due to "unforeseen emergencies," officials say.
Good news from Carter, MinnesotaCarver library board declines to remove 'Gender Queer' from shelves
On Tuesday, the Carver County Library Board voted to keep Gender Queer: A Memoir available to check out after dozens of supporters of the book testified during a public hearing.
Erin Busse filed a complaint in July requesting the book be removed from the Waconia branch library. Edstrom said she denied the request based on library policies.
“It's providing another viewpoint on our shelves, certainly an important viewpoint. We have it housed in our Adult Nonfiction collection,” Edstrom said.
In August, Busse appealed the decision to the library board. She told the board keeping the book on shelves where children can find it is akin to “sexual grooming.”
[Why are kids looking at the adult non-fiction section? This argument is ridiculous.]
The board had decided to push back the vote so they could all read the book.
“I'm not someone who will ban a book. I won't ban much of anything,” said board member Frank Foss. “I was amazed at how touching I found the book.”
Busse stood in the back of the meeting and did not testify, leaving before the vote was cast while library board president Teh was speaking.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/09...
More from Harper's BazaarEdwidge Danticat
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture...
The Stories We Tell
In the last few years, books and libraries have come under attack. This special report looks at the authors and artists who are fighting back.
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture...
Anger and Clarity, a blog from Texashttps://franklinstrong.substack.com/
Michigan
Investigation considered after books donated to Brandywine school
The Brandywine School Board is considering an investigation into a $5,000 book donation.
According to our reporting partners at WSJM Radio, a teacher applied for the donation from a non-profit called "We Need Diverse Books" without approval from the Superintendent or board.
Board President Thomas Payne says without that approval, the donation violates district policy.
"I would recommend that we halt adding any of these additional books to the library as well as remove the donated books from the library until an investigation is completed," said Payne.
https://wsbt.com/news/local/book-dona...
[Watch for another blanket ban like Duval County's Essential Voices and Northampton's Conscious Kids]
Embarrass them and they will change their minds.Hamilton East library board could reverse controversial book policy with new member
NOBLESVILLE, Ind. — In a nearly three-hour, heated special meeting, some members of the Hamilton East Public Library Board signaled they may attempt to reverse a controversial policy that has landed the library in the national spotlight.
The collection development policy was revised in December 2022. It was changed to say materials in the youth, middle school and high school sections should be “age appropriate.”
Since the revised policy was implemented, staff have been reviewing all of the section’s books to make sure they are in compliance. Famous Indianapolis author John Green’s “The Fault In Our Stars” was one of the more than a thousand books moved out of the youth section since that review began.
Green brought national attention to the library after calling the policy “an embarrassment” and the relocation decision “political theater of the lowest and most embarrassing order.”
The controversial policy is not only costing Hamilton County taxpayers upwards of $300,000, but it cost former board President Laura Alerding her position. The Noblesville School Board replaced her with English teacher and author Bill Kenley.
Now that the board has a new makeup, board member Michelle Payne said the changes to the policy should be removed.
“We did a lot of positive things with the policy that don’t need to change,” Payne said. “It’s the one paragraph on pages three and four and appendixes a and b that have caused the issues we all agree need to be paused.”
Tuesday’s special meeting was Kenley’s first since he was appointed to the board. During a back-and-forth with board member Micah Beckwith, Kenley indicated he may be in favor of reversing the policy.
“I’ve had thousands of people tell me that what I need to do is to come in here and vote to end this policy,” Kenley said.
“I’ve had thousands of people tell me to leave the policy in place,” Beckwith responded.
“I’d be very surprised. Where are they from? Are they from Noblesville?” Kenley questioned.
“They’re from Hamilton County, all over buddy,” Beckwith shot back.
Kenley would be the deciding vote if the board considered reversing the policy.
Beckwith along with board members Tiffanie Ditlevson, Ray Maddalone and Alerding were the four who originally voted for the revisions. Members Craig Siebe, Andre Miksha and Michelle Payne voted against it.
https://fox59.com/news/hamilton-east-...
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https://dailyinterlake.com/news/2023/...
Board..."
Hmm, I think library patrons, including children should just gather en masse at the library and hold very loud and boisterous Banned Book Celebrations in open and deliberate defiance.
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The so called spokespersons are obviously too cowardly to identify themselves. But honestly, when is book weeding that basically gets rid of ALL books from 2008/2009 and earlier acceptable and not censorship and also disgusting laziness.
Manybooks wrote: "ttps://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...The so called spokespersons are obviously too cowardly to identify themselves. But honestly, when is book weeding that basically gets rid of ALL books from 2008/2009 and earlier acceptable and not censorship and also disgusting laziness."
It's not just them. A community public library near me just renovated and they're doing the same thing but with a newer cut off date of 2019. They can't keep every book so they weed but they're not weeding based on books that no longer circulate! The woke police are just as bad as the "protect the children" police. They're both doing the same thing - making special snowflakes!
The books got dumped and no one was allowed to take them!
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The so called spokespersons are obviously too cowardly to identify themselves. But honestly, when is book weeding that basically gets rid ..."
Yeah, both right and left extremists are vile and also ignorant. But this thing in Ontario is also kind of simple laziness, as it sure is easier of course to just weed every book from a certain time period backwards.
Manybooks wrote: "QNPoohBear wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "ttps://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toront...The so called spokespersons are obviously too cowardly to identify themselves. But honestly, when is book weeding that ..."
Yes weeding from a certain time frame is lazy. I suspect it's a money issue. Time = money. Some of the books shown in the article are hugely popular!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
The Diary of a Young Girl
and that also bans Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment, Anne of Green Gables and um all the other books I grew up loving! Anne is a Canadian classic and with the Netflix series I would think the books circulate more than they did a couple years before that.
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The so called spokespersons are obviously too cowardly to identify themselves. But honestly, when is ..."
Some of it is of course laziness but I also often think weeding by time period is also used to justify getting rid of books.
Follow-up:Education Minister Stephen Lecce orders Peel school board to stop throwing out books
Trustees, parents and the minister of education were pointing fingers Wednesday over who is to blame for half-empty library shelves at Peel public schools in the wake of a rapid book purge that included Anne Frank’s ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ and Harry Potter series.
Trustees, parents and the minister of education were pointing fingers Wednesday over who is to blame for half-empty library shelves at some Peel public schools in the wake of a rapid book purge — a culling that led to concerns all books older than 2008 were being sent to landfill, including important texts like Anne Frank’s diary and beloved classics like “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”
In a scathing statement, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said Wednesday he had “written to the board to immediately end this practice.”
“It is offensive, illogical and counterintuitive to remove books from years past that educate students on Canada’s history, antisemitism or celebrated literary classics,” Lecce said.
Harry Potter and Diary of Anne Frank still circulating in PDSB libraries despite criticism, says school board
But the chair of the Peel District School Board cited inexperienced, misinformed staff for rushing to execute a directive from the education ministry itself, one issued after the board was placed under provincial supervision in response to allegations of racism and dysfunction.
“I’m sitting down and I’m scratching my head,” said trustee David Green, chair of the Peel District School Board, of Lecce’s comments. “I’m asking myself the question, does the minister really know the directive that was put in front of the board?”
The ministry’s review and investigation into the problems at the board resulted in a list of directives intended to fix those concerns — including a “comprehensive diversity audit” of schools and their libraries, books and other learning materials. The goal was to make these collections more inclusive and relevant to the school community.
“Part of the directive is to look at what’s in your library — look what’s there, see if it’s relevant, especially that it supports like, marginalized Afro-Caribbean students and Indigenous students specifically,” said Green.
“I understand training was provided on how they were supposed to go about the weeding. But I think in my opinion, the rollout of that process was wrong and they were trying to move too fast.”
https://www.thestar.com/politics/prov...
The Peel District School Board has issued a statement following backlash over the ongoing “weeding” of some dated books from its libraries.
“Weeding” refers to the process of removing books from circulation as the information inside them becomes dated or inaccurate. Books can also be weeded when they fall into disrepair, or when they fail to circulate a minimum number of times within a certain timeframe. Weeding is a common practice within libraries that ensures any given collection stays current and relevant.
In a statement to CP24, PDSB director of education Rashmi Swarup said that teacher librarians have been directed to keep books “with any publishing date,” as long as they are “accurate, relevant to the student population, inclusive, not harmful and support the current curriculum from the Ministry of Education.”
In May of this year, Peel schools issued a report on their diversity and equity rollout plan, which includes an item on weeding. The first of a three-step curation cycle in Peel schools, weeding is described as an equity measure to ensure the removal of books that might “perpetuate negative stereotypes and promote deficit-thinking.
“The remaining resources must reflect anti-racist, anti-oppressive and anti-colonial content,” says the report.
Once weeding is complete, Peel schools will perform a “representation audit,” which will ensure the school board’s book collection “intentionally affirm students’ identities that continue to be sparsely represented in PDSB’s current collections and classrooms.”
https://www.cp24.com/news/harry-potte...
Woke police. Anti-colonialism is code for remove any book written prior to 2020.
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Education Minister Stephen Lecce orders Peel school board to stop throwing out books
Trustees, parents and the minister of education were pointing fingers Wednesday over who is to bla..."
I do not like Stephen Lecce all that much and I also do not really like Doug Ford either (especially with him promising not to make open greenbelt areas for development and then reneging on said promise). But I am grateful that the Ontario provincial government is basically hard core fiscally conservative and so much Socially conservative and in particular with regard to book censorship and banning (and yes, the federal Conservatives should consider NO Social Conservatives measures and stick to economics even if it might offend in particular Western Canada).
I just came across a news story from 1959- a man from some morality society spoke at a local book fair urging people to put pressure on news agents to "stop selling smut." *Sigh* And we're STILL here 65 years later?Today's news in 2023
EveryLibrary reports:
A Twitter (X) thread by a mother of several students in Keller County Texas recently went viral for highlighting the radical interpretation the county has taken on what books should be banned. And as you may have guessed, it has very little to do with anything that a reasonable person would find inappropriate, and more to do with the politics of the county.
https://twitter.com/LaneyHawes/status...
Amanda Gorman (Volume 75)
was rejected from school libraries because one parent believed it had traces of CRT, or Critical Race Theory, in it. Their reason for the interpretation? It has nothing to do with what they actually read in the book, but rather something the author said about why she wrote it. Gorman discusses how most of the books she had to read in school were written by older, white men. She wanted to write a book that spoke to the experiences of children of color.
Banned Books: The Controversy over What Students Read
nothing that was read in the book was what triggered someone to challenge it. The challenger wrote: "Why does our school libraries need a book that includes a list of banned books?”
The Win Over challenged: “blended family living together before the parents are married.”
An Illustrated Collection of Nordic Animal Tales
unsuitable for children- “one of the tales speaks about an animal drinking beer & how it will make the animal feel better.”
Sisters of the Mist
(specifically why this book shouldn’t be in an elementary school): “should be in intermediate or middle school- coming of age story about a sister starting menstruation.”
Disney Manga: Descendants - Mal's Royal Challenge "Don't trust Disney!"
Everything Will Be Okay "Agenda!"
My Fade Is Fresh
Complaint: “little girl gets military-style haircut at barbershop, but more about black hair.”
Ambitious Girl Complaint: “includes non binary.”
The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here Complaint: “Climate change theory, are there any books that represent the other side of this?”
Grow Up, Tahlia Wilkins!
Complaint: “Not for elementary or intermediate but is okay for middle and high school, the book is all about a girl dealing with her first period.”
Loyalty Complaint: “Anti-American Sentiment. Tells story of the American Revolution but the protagonist is Pro-Britain.”
Last Dance Complaint: “racist…white girl villain”
When the World Turned Upside Down
“presented as kids dealing w/ life in Covid but discusses racism, GeorgeFloyd, BLM & antipolice themes. I wonder if kids & adults might be exhausted w/talk of COVID & various current events. It felt heavy handed in presentation & agenda.”
Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman
Complaint: “white privilege and everything is racist.”
Between the Lighthouse and You “Messages from the dead.”
Nothing More to Tell Complaint: “CRT, LGBTQ”
An ABC of Democracy (Volume 3) Complaint: “No. activist author.”
Very Good Hats challenge: “one of the illustrations has a bare butt.”
Jim Crow: Segregation and the Legacy of Slavery (American Slavery and the Fight for Freedom
Challenge: “potentially CRT…references BLM in a positive light…quote claiming oppression is still happening.”
The Last Two Crayons challenge: “A sensitive & age appropriate tale to spark conversations about skin color.”
Prince (Volume 54) Challenge: “pg 28 He also identified as both male & female, celebrating the qualities of both. Also, showed a picture of him dressed as a girl in a pink leotard.”
Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race Challenge: “this book starts out beautifully but unfortunately tenets of CRT, social Justice, & anti-white activism are portrayed. TX passed a law banning CRT in schools…”
Fast Pitch Challenge: “coach is in lesbian marriage, inordinate focus on racism.”
https://twitter.com/LaneyHawes
These books are now banned for TEN YEARS! here's the Rubric they used.
These books went through the official district established challenge committee process. But because they all passed the committee process, the extremist Christian nationalist school board decided the process was “rigged.”
Some good news Clyde-Savannah school board (Wayne, N.Y.) votes to place books they banned back in library
The back story: A taxpayer raised concerns he has about five books in the school library. The school board voted to remove the books. Two school staff members who disagreed with the books being removed filed an appeal with the state to intervene and hopefully have the books placed back on the library shelves. So the board voted Wednesday on whether the books would stay or go.
Some Wednesday were in favor of keeping the books off the library shelves, and some were against. Jacob Marchitell was at the board meeting and says these books are inappropriate to have in the school’s library. He challenged the school board after they voted to overturn their previous vote to remove the books off the shelves.
Renee Shrimp — who has two teens attending the school district, one in junior high and one in senior high, says the board did the right thing by voting to keep the books in the library.
“Very happy that they stood their ground amidst all the taunting, being called shameful to be voting to keep the books in, being called a predator — I’m very proud of them for being strong and standing up for our community,” Shrimp said.
Jennifer Williams said she doesn’t agree with the board’s decision Wednesday, but was not surprised.
https://www.whec.com/top-news/clyde-s...
Bad news- a piece on how Moms for Liberty is winning its fight to remove books from one Maryland school districthttps://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/ed...
School librarians were told last month they must follow a time-consuming checklist policing a book’s content before adding it to school libraries. And the school system’s librarian supervisor moved to a lower-level job after a request to banish a batch of books was rejected.
A group of librarians rallied supporters to wear black at Carroll’s school board meeting on Wednesday evening in protest.
The Maryland Association of School Librarians has supported librarians facing book challenges in Wicomico, Worcester, Calvert, Somerset and Baltimore counties. But Carroll is the only one to change its book selection procedure in response.
Carey Gaddis, a spokesperson for the school system, said its new checklist for librarians “is documentation that our established process and criteria have been used.” It includes statements like “appropriate for recommended age/grade levels,” “reflective of the pluralistic nature of American society,” “representative of differing viewpoints,” and “does not include sexually explicit content.”
The system also revised its selection criteria for classroom instruction materials like textbooks to specify that they should “not include sexually explicit content.”
“School librarians would need to read every book in its entirety to comply,” the school librarians association wrote in a statement opposing the new checklist. “Considering that new and wonderful books are being published yearly and a school library’s purchase of new books could be several hundred, it is an unrealistic expectation and will result in significantly fewer books being able to be placed on the shelf for student access.”
The group questioned the term “sexually explicit” since it could have different meanings to different people. They noted that librarians use professional review sources like School Library Journal and Booklist, as well as awards lists, to pick high-quality books as efficiently as possible.
They also emphasized that librarians have other responsibilities the new requirement will get in the way of.
The association stated on its website that Carroll school librarians were told they’d be accountable for any content in a book deemed inappropriate and that they can no longer order books that crossed grade levels. That means if a book is for seventh graders and up, it can’t be put in middle school libraries, since sixth graders could have access. Books for adults, even nonfiction and cookbooks, can’t be purchased for high schools “with no exceptions.”
Superintendent Cynthia McCabe said that process isn’t designed to handle the volume of challenges Carroll County is now seeing. She declined an interview, but said in a statement that it was “necessary, reasonable and measured” to pull those books off the shelves for now.
“Our reconsideration process was established to review a single book or maybe a couple of books,” her statement said. “Given these factors, we have had to acknowledge that we will not be able to meet the 30-day timeline in our process for the reconsideration committee to meet and decide.”
She said she has no intention of permanently changing the process and does not want to interfere with the committee, noting that she recently replaced committee members whose terms have expired. She wants her staff to focus on the start of the school year and doesn’t want the book challenges to be a distraction.
South Dakota has good newsChallenges on hold while board revisits policy
https://brookingsregister.com/article...
An overflow crowd attended Monday night’s school board meeting at Dakota Prairie Elementary School in Brookings, overwhelmingly to urge the board not to capitulate to a national right-wing effort to ban books in public schools.
More than 30 people signed up and spoke during the public comment period, which was moved to the end of the agenda to accommodate the crowd. The vast majority thanked the board for their hard work and told them not to ban any books from Brookings school libraries.
Those challenges, apparently organized on website titled “Save Brookings,” are part of a nationwide effort funded by far-right groups to censor school libraries.
Approximately a dozen challenges were made here in Brookings, all of which were denied, board members said during the meeting.
Eleven are in an appeal process.
At that point, the school board decided to expedite the process of revising its challenge policy, which was last addressed in 2013.
New Superintendent Summer Schultz said during the meeting that she would handle all of the appeals to allow the librarians to return to their normal work and that no new challenges would be entertained until the board approves a new policy.
Perhaps most salient, board member Teresa Binkley noted during the meeting that any parent with a child enrolled in Brookings schools can fill out a form at their child’s school library and list any book titles they wish to prevent their child from checking out.
The school district has zero such requests on file.
A wide cross-section of the community turned out to urge the board not to remove any books, including clergy, former teachers and professors, local business owners, high school students and activists.
“I assure you we are providing diligence to this issue, but with all policies, we want to ensure the first draft mirrors our intentions. This issue can produce strong opinions, and I ask that you offer patience as we work through the policy review process.
“It’s important to clarify that this process was not initiated to ban books. Instead, we are working to ensure that our policies are appropriate for the current educational climate and our libraries continue to be a place where students have voluntary access to a diverse range of literature and are a foundation of knowledge, understanding, and cultural enrichment,” Schultz wrote.
Even those who had previously agitated against certain books — the Save Bookings site links to such well worn classics as Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” among hundreds of others — struck a more conciliatory tone.
Rick Weible spoke to the gathering and said he was a member of Save Brookings as he declared “Mission accomplished,” and went on to say that his group was merely trying to “raise awareness.”
Alabama is still at it.Alabama library service approves GOP chairman’s proposal to create list of controversial books
The executive board of the Alabama Public Library Service Executive Board Wednesday voted to create a list of books with content that people may find inappropriate for teenagers and children.
The proposal, sponsored by Alabama Republican Party chair John Wahl, a member of the board, came after a crowded public comment period. It passed unanimously.
Under Wahl’s proposal, people can submit books that they believe have questionable themes to the Public Library Service. The forms will then be provided to local libraries. The libraries themselves will decide what to do with the books.
Wahl said to reporters after the meeting that local libraries are not required to do anything, and the list is only meant to be a resource for libraries and parents.
“I don’t think that APL has the authority to directly tell a local library you cannot have this book, and so what we want to do is we want to be a good resource,” he said.
The board has asked the Alabama attorney general’s office to determine the scope of its authority.
Proponents of restricting book access said that they were not trying to ban books, and they were not targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
Hannah Rees,[AGAIN] who has been involved in trying to restrict books in the Prattville Library System through the organization, Clean Up Alabama, spoke in the public comment period. She distributed to board members what she said was a survey of Alabama’s libraries regarding books that had been challenged and where they were in the review process.
“Any book that we’ve brought to your attention is highlighting sexual acts for children and involving gender ideologies for children,” she said.
Rep. Susan DuBose, R-Hoover, said that a library in north Shelby County had a display of LGBTQ+ books. She said that the display was in June, which was the busiest time in summer. June is Pride month.
DuBose also spoke about the American Library Association, where Emily Drabinski,
Kassandra Stevens from Shelby County said that she didn’t want to remove books, but she wanted to remove the book display.
“McCarthyism was thrown at us from our local library, as we asked simply to remove a display in the children’s section, not ban the books, not burn the books, not remove the books from the library, simply to not choose one ideology over another to promote and focus on for a full month, the month that all the children are coming in,” she said.
On the other side, proponents of leaving the books alone said that they wanted the libraries to have freedom.
Matthew Layne, president of the Alabama Library Association, said that libraries should reflect the communities they serve.
Layne also spoke about the benefits of the national American Library Association, such as workshops they offer.
“When we talk about A.L.A., we are not talking about a sinister cabal,” he said. “We are talking about our parents, our siblings and our neighbors who chose the profession of librarian to serve their communities.”
Michael Cairns, vice-chair of the Ozark board, spoke about his experience in Ozark, and said that moving books in libraries will not make a difference because once a parent signs off on a minor having a library card, they are free to pick out books. He said that he reviews books picked out by his child at the library and at the bookstore.
https://www.al.com/news/2023/09/alaba...
And of course TexasFriendswood Christian School cancels Scholastic Book Fair over books supporting LGBTQ+ community
ONE parent complained about the cancellation!
"What about children who do have parents who are part of that community? Does that mean they are losing their innocence? I myself am a Christian, also. I have a right as a Christian to believe that God doesn't have any kind of discrimination against people of that community as well. And they get to have ownership of that religion is beyond me," he said."
https://abc13.com/friendswood-christi...
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Friendswood Christian School cancels Scholastic Book Fair over books supporting LGBTQ+ community
ONE parent complained about the cancellation!
"What about children who do ha..."
Students in the 60s and 70s actively engaged in protests for peace and against the Vietnam War and were often not afraid of verbally berating and criticising the USA, their families, lawmakers and politicians. But today, that seems to have sadly disappeared and it needs to happen again and everywhere.
Manybooks wrote: "But today, that seems to have sadly disappeared and it needs to happen again and everywhere."They have social media now but people are protesting, especially students. The problem is that in rural areas kids can't just go out and mobilize and protest on their own, nor will their helicopter parents let them. Remember, many of these kids have never been exposed to ideas other than those of their narrow circle and some won't have the understanding necessary to protest until they go to college.
Watch or read the transcripts from school board meetings. There are usually children present and one queer youth went to Washington, DC to the Senate committee hearing (made up of primarily old white men, old women, Corey Booker and one Hawaiian Senator). What students need to do it get out the vote and get these people out of office! Students are mobilizing from Brooklyn, NY over Zoom across the country, students in Texas have book clubs and others are holding protests at their schools.
Sadly, so many are on BookTok and are influenced by the wrong people .
It's all there in the news. I check Google News--Entertainment--Books or follow the "literature" subject for my news. I'm not on social media but I'm sure the students have their own social media groups.
A whole lot of news today.From Literary Activism
"For all that book banners claim it is okay for the books they do not like to be sold, the reality is they are not okay with that either. In the last several years, there have been attempts to censor the materials made available at school book fairs. Among the stories include the "reevaluation" of books for sale at book fairs in Mat-Su School District (Alaska — a school with a lengthy history of book bans), the removal of Heartstopper from a Scholastic Book Fair in South Carolina, parents believing they should determine which books are available for Scholastic Book Fairs in Little Miami (Ohio), two board members of the Hastings School District (MN) removed books they disagreed with from a Scholastic Book Fair, and Grapeville-Colleyville Independent School District disallowed a Scholastic Book Fair (which was then privately held by parents angered by this overstep of local government), among dozens of others. Right-wingers have developed some pretty outlandish conspiracy theories about book fairs, too. In one instance, a candidate for the Denton Independent School District school board claimed that Scholastic Book Fairs were enticing educators to indoctrinate students.
Brave Books, Kirk Cameron's right-wing extremist publisher, has created a host of "fear-mongering posts on their social media feeds, creating a cascade of posts from right-wing groups like Moms For Liberty and others warning members to continue being vigilant and to demand knowing what is happening at school book fairs. The same people who say they are allowing access to books by letting them still be at public libraries or be sold to people have decided that, indeed, they were only saying that. They did not mean it."
"What's important to consider is how the messaging is packaged. First, it's a series of images of quotes from several commonly banned books without a single lick of context to them. We know context makes no difference to censors, and yet seeing it so starkly manages to stoke the flames of people desperate to assert a false sense of control over the world around them.
Naturally, there's more to this story. It's Brave Books's capitalist solution: their own book fairs.
Not only does Brave Books provide book banners with the language through which to demand books be removed from book fairs at schools — those cherry-picked quotes are precisely what you can see showing up in emails and at school board meetings by those who've been groomed by this agenda — but they offer those same people a solution to the problem.
You can't call them book banners if they are running their own book fair, can you?"
https://literaryactivism.substack.com...
In Marietta, GeorgiaWith permission granted by the school board, Marietta Schools (GA) will begin to pull "books considered obscene, pornographic, not age-appropriate, or without substantive historical or academic value." This is going to be a review of 20,000 books!
""This was not intended to be a book ban. This was not intended to be a policy," board chairwoman Kerry Minervini said. "This was intended to start discussions amongst the Board of Education, the district, Dr. Rivera and our community stakeholders about what we want this process to look like going forward"
Minervini was among the five board members who voted in favor of passing the directive Tuesday night.
"In Marietta, we're trying to get people to coalesce around getting together and having these discussions so that we can come up with the most appropriate definitions and the most appropriate ways to protect our children from things that people don't want them to see," she said.
District leaders said parents already had an option to challenge books they felt were inappropriate for school libraries. This directive creates a path for the district to review and remove books while allowing parents to challenge those decisions.
The superintendent said he had a three-step process in place for reviewing the existing 20,000 books in the Marietta City School system.
"Vague policies like this really just end up being swords to harm people who are already marginalized," parent Kayla Sergeant said. "I don't see any reason why there should be a unique attack on sexually explicit material or any kind of sexual content when there's not an attack on violent content or murder or homicide or any other sort of dangerous type of literature that we might be concerned about."
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/...
Two librarians at a small Kansas library were fired for a display city officials objected to. "Among the library displays were a rainbow infinity symbol representing neurodiversity and autism awareness and a colorful image with a disabled child, both of which city officials believed promoted an "LGBTQ agenda." Librarians are suing. (paywalled article)In Las Cruces, New Mexico, a woman without children in the school district is attempting to remove Jack of Hearts
"The book complaint I filed is not about book banning. And this is not about removing a book from the public library. This is about the presence of an age-inappropriate book in a publicly funded high school, where it can be accessed by children as young as 13 years old."
https://www.krwg.org/local-viewpoints...
Goodish news:A measure to dissolve the Columbia County Rural Library District in southeastern Washington has been temporarily blocked from the Nov. 7 ballot.
Superior Court Judge Julie Karl ruled the proposition that would shut down the county’s only library is invalid. The temporary restraining order she issued will block the measure from the ballot and prevent officials from printing ballots for 14 days.
Proposition 2 aims to dissolve the Columbia County Library in Dayton, Washington. The plaintiffs, including the local political action committee Neighbors United for Progress, filed a lawsuit and said the measure would cause voters irreparable harm if it was placed on the ballot.
Last year, several people asked to move or take out books they say are pornographic or obscene. When that didn’t happen, they gathered signatures to dissolve the rural library district, based in Dayton.
If Proposition 2 succeeds, librarians said this would be the first public library district in the country to be dissolved following a book challenge.
In a news release posted to Facebook, Jessica Ruffcorn, who supports the rural library district dissolution and is a defendant in the lawsuit, said no one requested to ban any books, only relocate them to areas that they said were more appropriate than the young adult section.
In recent weeks, the library moved the young adult nonfiction section into the adult fiction section. Librarians also said they’d allow parents to add permissions to their children’s library cards. For example, if a parent only wanted children to checkout required reading for school, a note could be added to the child’s account.
This week, library staff announced they’d moved the “parenting section” to a larger bookcase that includes the “first conversations'' section, which includes books on puberty, consent, bodies and sex education. In a Facebook post, they also said they set up bright green soft room dividers around the young adult section “both muffle sound, in case someone is trying to study while there are young children playing, and to clearly mark where the young adult section is.”
The attorney for the plaintiffs, Ric Jacobs, said in an earlier interview that there is no evidence children have ever checked out the books in question.
If the library district is dissolved, librarians and attorneys said all of the materials will go to the state and the building will return to the City of Dayton, which library supporters said previously had trouble funding upkeep and maintenance on the historic building.
If the measure does make it into the November ballot, people who live in the city aren’t allowed to vote on it.
As part of the temporary restraining order, Karl ruled the proposition gave too much power to people in unincorporated parts of Columbia County. Karl also agreed with the plaintiffs, saying the state law is inconsistent. She said that means the petition process and upcoming vote are invalid. She said there is “substantial evidence” of fraud regarding the petition signatures that library opponents collected.
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/09/1...
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/09/1...
In Midland, TX, I knew this would happen.Commissioner Dianne Anderson and a group of volunteers went to Centennial Library earlier this month to help with the process of analyzing certain material in the kids section.
“After several conversations with the library director, I thought that it would be helpful if we pulled some books so we could help her get the books pulled out," Anderson said. "That was the whole intent, she met us at the library, she gave us a cart.”
However, some members of the court admonished the move, saying that they didn't know she had went down there and that it wasn't a true representation of the court.
"I want folks to understand, that wasn’t a true representation of our commissioner’s court," Commissioner Jeff Somers said. "I actually didn’t know about it until I read it in the newspaper."
Anderson, however, insisted that she and her volunteers wanted to help speed up a long and arduous task for the librarians.
“Just a group of citizens trying to be helpful, trying to move the process along because we are not getting responses on our reconsiderations," Anderson said. "These books continue to be in the library and they don’t need to be in the children’s section.”
Speakers on both sides have been confused on how to apply for a reconsideration form, which would see a librarian review books some deem "harmful" and decide on whether or not that book should be moved from the youth section to the adult section.
"There is a little bit of confusion about the policy that was adopted on August 4th and the reconsideration policy," Anderson said. "People here were speaking about reconsideration policies that they have followed and they have not gotten a response on the status of their reconsideration request."
While there are policies in place for reconsidering a book, there was an agreement that it was too slow of a process.
"I just want everybody to understand that we have policies in place that the community is trying to bring up here at this meeting," Somers said. "We have policies, they need to be executed on."
While the item was on the table for further discussion, the court did recommend hiring more help for the library to speed up the process of completing reconsideration forms.
https://www.newswest9.com/article/new...
A lot of bad news in AlabamaThe Alabama Public Library Service voted to post a list of books considered inappropriate for children on their website at Wednesday’s meeting. The list is solely based on submissions as the public will be able to send in titles they think are inappropriate which will then be posted to the APLS website and distributed to libraries."
https://www.wsfa.com/2023/09/13/ala-p...
Alabama GOP chairman suggests state consider withdrawal from American Library Association
“Marxism by nature is a powerful central government that people are dependent on,” said John Wahl, chairman of the Alabama GOP, “The competition (against) that is strong family units, faith in God and local communities.”
He added, “The question has to be if we need to separate. I don’t want to be associated with an organization whose head is an open Marxist.”
The ALA, a nonprofit, has denied it has political agenda. It has said it remains a nonpartisan organization.
Gregory Magarian, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who followed Missouri’s departure from the ALA, said that severing the associational tie to the ALA for conservative states “makes the libraries more beholden to state government and more vulnerable to state government pressures.”
“Alongside that motive, I think these state governments want to make libraries into culture war battlegrounds,” Magarian said. “At a deeper level, I think public libraries, like public education, are anathema to conservative ideology. Conservatives don’t like government services, especially to lower income populations. They don’t like when people gain value while no one makes a profit. They want conservative managers to control cultural institutions … why wouldn’t they want to weaken, or preferably eliminate, public libraries?”
Wahl said the movement is not about “banning books,” saying that Republicans are “not about banning anything.”
He blamed Democrats for supporting “banning books,” accusing left-wing politicians and activists for pushing censorship.
“Conservatives are not the advocates of censorship, it’s the left,” said Wahl. “I will not be boxed into a false narrative. We need to be bold on this.”
Wahl said that conservatives are more concerned about children encountering questionable content.
“We are talking about what is appropriate,” he said. “Is the use of taxpayer funding to buy books with sexually explicit content for children appropriate? I say ‘No.’ We don’t want it in the children’s section where innocent children can get a hold of it.”
But Wahl admitted that the state board does not have the authority to regulate local libraries. He said the state can provide the list and create a guideline for local libraries to follow.
Patrick McWilliams, chairman of the Baldwin County Republican Party, said his organization’s executive board plans to vote on a resolution Saturday to recommend the Baldwin County Commission provide oversight of the Baldwin County Library Cooperative, which consists of 13 public libraries and one bookmobile.
He said the commission, which consists of all Republicans, has financial oversight of the county’s public libraries.
In nearby Mobile County, a group of local conservative activists have hinted that they might challenge up to 30 library books.
Tara McCook, speaking before the Mobile City Council during Tuesday’s meeting, struck back, and said efforts to “threaten our library” are about things “that are not even true.”
Her comments drew a reaction from two council members who said the Mobile City Council has not wavered in supporting LGBTQ people and causes.
https://www.al.com/news/2023/09/alaba...
Alabama education officials consider adjusting rules for school librariesThe Alabama Board of Education is staying out of the library debate for now.
State officials briefly discussed updating a content challenge policy, but decided to let individual schools continue to handle questions about library content. While some public libraries are facing questions about book collections and presentation, state superintendent Eric Mackey said he hasn’t seen an uptick in challenges of school library books.
“None of that, that I know of, has bled into our public school libraries,” Mackey said.
This week, state officials decided to create a list of books with questionable content and circulate the list to individual libraries.
The state Board of Education and Department of Education do not control public libraries anymore. They are funded and operated separately.
Mackey said he believes the state’s current school library standards are sufficient to handle book challenges.
“Every library has to have a challenge policy and procedures in there and let parents know what it is,” he said.
The Board was on the verge of adopting new school library standards in January, but decided not to.
Long-time board member Stephanie Bell said when she has received calls about concerns about a book, she refers the caller back to their child’s school.
“It seems to have worked on every occasion because I always say ‘call me back if you have any more concerns or if it doesn’t work or you get to a point where you don’t feel like it’s been resolved,’” Bell said, but she hasn’t had anyone call her back.
Board Vice President Tracie West said parents that have contacted her about how to challenge books thought the state board was the right place to bring a challenge. They were unaware that the proper place to start a challenge was at the school
Mackey told board members he will send a memo to superintendents statewide reminding them they must have a challenge policy in place.
https://www.al.com/educationlab/2023/...
In Brookfield, Connecticut, the school board is being requested to remove books. In July, the district received a petition signed by more than 200 people, including Brookfield First Selectman Tara Carr, with a request to change its book selection criteria. Petitioners requested that the district clearly identify in its regulations what is considered obscene in the school library and to conduct a 'complete audit' of library books after the policy is revised, among other aims." The board will soon be determining whether or not to ban Fun Home: A Family Tragicomichttps://www.newstimes.com/news/articl...
People petitioning to remove manga from the Garfield County Libraries (CO) haven't read the books. They're also belligerent and don't believe rules apply to them.“We’ll look at this petition, but we don’t rule by petition,” Garfield County Libraries Board of Trustees President Adrian Rippy-Sheehy said. “We rule by our established policies and procedures. It’s tough emotionally and everything, whether we personally agree or not. That’s why, after the public meeting, we’ll discuss all this and see how we want to respond.”
Trish O'Grady, a resident at the lead of the push, notified the board that she intended to turn over a petition containing 844 signatures at the start of the meeting to the board at their monthly business meeting.
O’Grady said the initiative was started by John Lepkowski, who Garfield County Libraries Executive Director Jamie LaRue said had approached the libraries with complaints about other materials in the past.
The concern with these specific books — two series but three titles in total — is highly graphic images that could be picked up by children. Initially the request was to move the books to the library’s top shelves, but the petition as submitted states that “these two book series, along with any other material with the Parental Advisory Warning should not be accessed by minors. … These materials need to be in a locked bookcase, placed in an employee area or in a separate room marked as adult only at each of the locations.”
The petition goes on to demand that the books should require an ID displaying an age above 18 to check out, and that if these “requirements” are not met that the books be removed entirely from the library.
Before the petition, LaRue told Lepkowski and O’Grady to file a “request for reconsideration” form with the libraries. He denied each of them, saying that each of the “challenges” he received for the books were from “people who haven’t read the books.”
“When (O’Grady) says, ‘This is going on,t(view spoiler) the whole point of the book, if you read it, is that it’s people looking at something and getting a mistaken idea about things that didn’t happen,” LaRue said. “This is an award-winning series that is played for laughs. It’s supposed to be funny. She’s saying, ‘(LaRue) finds it funny.’ No, I’m saying it was written as a comedy and you have to read the whole thing to know.”
LaRue added that the decision was made based on the libraries’ role as an information provider. LaRue and the board of trustees said the books already were not located in proximity to the children’s section in their libraries, preventing incidental pickup.
“Our mission is to provide information about the world to anybody who’s looking for it. That’s our job,” LaRue said. “To come in and start tweaking away at this … We stand for something. We have policies and those policies articulate our purpose, and I think we’re supposed to hold it.”
LaRue felt that the conversation hasn’t been had in good faith. He said that O’Grady had visited the Silt branch, “berated one of my staff … took some of the books down, opened them to the pictures and carefully placed them around the library, including the children’s area … doing exactly what they falsely accused the library of doing, which is pushing adult content on children.”
LaRue sent O’Grady a letter saying that they would call the police and she would at least receive a 30-day ban from libraries if she acted similarly again. He said the libraries had not yet pursued legal action.
“I think this is not only a legal issue, I think it’s a moral issue,” O’Grady said. “I don’t think it’s morally beneficial for kids to be able to see this material, and I want to raise awareness because I’m old enough to remember when things like this were available to children that were eventually banned. I remember when cigarettes were available with vending machines in restaurants and 10 and 12 year olds would go in there.”
https://www.aspendailynews.com/news/r...
School libraries opened to students on Monday in the Charlotte Mecklenburg district. Five books have been challenged. This district met with the Moms For Liberty group last fall.As previously reported, once SB 49, the controversial Parents' Bill of Rights Law, passed in the General Assembly when the Republican-controlled majority voted to override a veto by Gov. Cooper, CMS fast-tracked policy changes in order to comply with state law.
The new law codifies most rights parents already currently have in schools, but now gives them legal avenues to report if this isn't happening.
e, it requires districts to inform parents about how to object to materials or curriculum topics, how to file a formal complaint, and how to opt their students out of surveys on topics the parents might find inappropriate.
The new law also led CMS to delay opening their media center for check-outs until Monday, Sept. 11, while they worked to comply with new policies surrounding materials that parents might find inappropriate.
The books in question are:
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
SOLD by Patricia McCormick
Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
Jack of Hearts by L.C. Rosen
A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J Maas
https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/edu...
Children's Books
Books mentioned in this topic
Out of the Blue (other topics)The Princess in Black and the Prince in Pink (other topics)
My Rainbow (other topics)
Butt or Face? Volume 3: Super Gross Butts (other topics)
The Day the Books Disappeared (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Jodi Picoult (other topics)Sarah J. Maas (other topics)
Ellen Hopkins (other topics)
Jodi Picoult (other topics)
Scott Stuart (other topics)
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This is beyond disgusting and in particular that it is still seemingly legal, that women can still be forcibly sterilised. Not only do I agree that the practice should be made illegal and a criminal act, well, I kind of think that it should be made a crime retroactively.
Anyone know if forced sterilisation is still legal in the USA and in US sates (sure is horrid that many Canadian provinces still have this on the books so to speak).