Banned Together
A Tennessee school district's decision to ban Maus, Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, made front-page news yesterday. According to National Public Radio (NPR), the American Library Association (ALA) found that "attempts to ban school library books was 67% higher in September 2021 than in September 2020." Which books are the targets and why?
"Diverse content" is frequently challenged. Since 1990, ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has maintained lists of the most challenged books. On the OIF website, you can search for banned books by decade or year and read ALA's State of America's Libraries report. Reading through the lists, a trend emerges: books with diverse content are frequently challenged or banned. Looking at data from 2015, OIF discovered that nine of the top ten challenged books had diverse content. OIF's list of 86 frequently banned diverse books includes "content by or about people of color, LGBT people and/or people with disabilities." The list includes multiple award-winning classics by Ernest Gaines and Toni Morrison, along with The Diary of Anne Frank, The Librarian of Basra, and The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
The revolution will not be read.
OIF also tracks which children's and young adult books are challenged or banned. Books that do not fare well on these lists mirror adult diverse content trends with plotlines about resistance movements and social injustice. The frequently challenged list for high school readers includes fiction, like The Hunger Games Trilogy, and true stories, such as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. In the Time of the Butterflies, a Bold and Bookish pick, is considered problematic as well. This critically acclaimed novel follows the heroic Mirabal sisters who stood up to their country's brutal regime. As a result, three of the sisters were assassinated. The United Nations' International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women is held on November 25th every year in their honor. Interestingly, stories mentioning witches, like The Witches and The Witch of Blackbird Pond, also instigate censure.
Words can change worlds.
In "Schools are banning my book. But queer kids need queer stories," Maia Kobabe, the author of Gender Queer: A Memoir, wrote about what it felt like to learn the book was being banned in Fairfax County, Virginia. Maia said, "Queer youth are often forced to look outside their own homes, and outside the education system, to find information on who they are." Books can change how young people view themselves and the world around them. Maia received an encouraging message not long after learning about the ban. A student from Fairfax County wrote, "My mom and I read your book. I loved it! I related to almost everything you said. I felt so understood and not alone. I think my mom understands me better and I'm more confident in confiding in her since she read your book. Thank you so much for creating your memoir!"
Champion Banned Books Week. Mark your calendars! Banned Books Week 2022 will take place from September 18-24 and Girl Friday will post reminders on Instagram. You can sustain Banned Books Week year-round by supporting their sponsors, like the American Booksellers Association.
Support the "I Read Banned Books" Campaign. The ACLU believes that "banning books by a certain group of people or based on a specific point of view is a violation of our First Amendment right." You can support their campaign by purchasing "I Read Banned Books" merchandise.
Be Proactive. Take an active role in community school board meetings and parent-teacher conferences to find out which books are under consideration for censure in your local library and how you can get involved.