Banned Books Week 2024 - What can you do?

Today is the last day of Banned Books Week and it's Let Freedom Read Day. Here is what the day entails...

"The freedom to read is under attack — let’s do something about it!

On September 28, 2024, we’re asking everyone to get ready to vote for the freedom to read or to take at least one action to help defend books from censorship and to stand up for the library staff, educators, writers, publishers, and booksellers who make them available!

Show us how you’re taking action on social media by using the hashtags #LetFreedomReadDay and #BannedBooksWeek!

And don’t forget: Censorship won’t stop just because Banned Books Week does — you can take action any day of the year! Bookmark this page for future reference."

Visit the page here to find out what you can do. There are graphics for sharing on social media and tips on actions you can take in your community, and with your elected officials. 

These are actions we should be taking regularly throughout the year. Now more than ever, there is even more risk of precious books with important lessons being removed from public and school access. Project 2025 is something that may be very instrumental in this happening if the wrong people take power in this country. If you have not heard of Project 2025 before now, I urge you to read it for yourself. The 922 page 2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise can be read here in its entirety. 

Challenge Reporting

"ALA, established in 1876, has a longstanding commitment to defend intellectual freedom in libraries. Even before the formal adoption of the Library Bill of Rights in 1939, ALA has provided support, guidance, and resources to librarians faced with censorship. Since 1990, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has maintained a database on challenged materials. ALA gathers information from media reports and individual reports submitted from the form below.

Reporting censorship and challenges to materials, resources, and services is vital to developing the best resources to defend library resources and to protect against challenges before they happen. The information gathered from these reports helps OIF:stay aware of developments in the profession
supply library workers with crucial tools, resources, workshops, and programs
compile the Top 10 Most Challenged Books list and trend reports for public awareness

OIF staff will be in contact to offer assistance and support. Even if support is not needed, please report challenges. Your report is confidential unless you tell us otherwise. Visit the ALA Fight Censorship clearinghouse of resources, statements, partners, and graphics for more information and additional ways you can defend the freedom to read and support others facing censorship."

The information above, and the form to report censorship, can be found on this page.

I hope my Banned Books Week coverage has been informational this year. See you next year. 📚

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Banned Books Week 2024: Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023 - Books 9 and 10

"Between January 1 and August 31, 2024, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 414 attempts to censor library materials and services. In those cases, 1,128 unique titles were challenged. In the same reporting period last year, ALA tracked 695 attempts with 1,915 unique titles challenged. Though the number of reports to date has declined in 2024, the number of documented attempts to censor books continues to far exceed the numbers prior to 2020. Additionally, instances of soft censorship, where books are purchased but placed in restricted areas, not used in library displays, or otherwise hidden or kept off limits due to fear of challenges illustrate the impact of organized censorship campaigns on students’ and readers’ freedom to read. In some circumstances, books have been preemptively excluded from library collections, taken off the shelves before they are banned, or not purchased for library collections in the first place." https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

Read my Banned Books Week kick-off post here.

Below are books nine and ten of the top ten most challenged books of 2023 with their Book Résumés.

9. Let's Talk About It: The Teen's Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan

Number of challenges: 55
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, sex education, LGBTQIA+ content

Excerpts from the Book Résumé:

How do you find the answers to all the questions you have about yourself, about your identity, and about your body? Let's Talk About It provides a comprehensive, thoughtful, well-researched graphic novel guide to everything you need to know. Title: Let's Talk About It: The Teen's Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human (A Graphic Novel) Author: Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan Imprint: Random House Graphic Publisher: Random House Children’s Book On sale date: March 9, 2021 ISBN: 9780593125311 and 9781984893147 Format: Hardcover and Paperback Age Range*: 14 and up Grade Range: Gr 9 Up Recommended by School Library Journal 

Covering relationships, friendships, gender, sexuality, anatomy, body image, safe sex, sexting, jealousy, rejection, sex education, and more, Let's Talk About It is the go-to handbook for every teen, and the first in graphic novel form.

Read the full Book Résumé here.

10. Sold by Patricia McCormick

Number of challenges: 53

Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, rape

Excerpts from the Book Résumé:

The powerful, poignant, bestselling National Book Award Finalist gives voice to a young girl robbed of her childhood yet determined to find the strength to triumph 

Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though she is desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best friend from school, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family's crops, Lakshmi's stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family. 

He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi journeys to India and arrives at "Happiness House" full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution. 

An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family's debt-then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave. 

Lakshmi's life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother's words-Simply to endure is to triumph-and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life? 

Written in spare and evocative vignettes by the co-author of I Am Malala (Young Readers Edition), this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.

 RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES 

Williston High School (Williston, ND): 

“The message of strength and hope is important to teen girls who need to know that whatever they are facing, whether as bad as rape and continued sexual abuse or not, can be survived and that help is available. That this book was challenged is ridiculous.” 

“There are so many important lessons to be learned from this book. I feel it is also important for our students to have access to books like this - they need to understand that some people live this life and that there is a way our of it. Please keep this book available for our students. I am a mother and ironically had recommended this book to my freshman daughter a week before the list of "challenged" books came out. I would not have a problem letting my daughter read this book.”

Buncombe County Board of Education (Asheville, NC): 

Deemed a “touching and compelling read that offered a historical and cultural perspective on a relevant global issue.”  

AUTHOR STATEMENT

To ban this book is to erase the young people around the world who are currently enslaved. To ban this book is a disservice to the women who shared their stories with me so the world could know about their plight. And to ban this book is disrespectful to the young readers who want to know about the world as it is – so they can make a difference. 

But, perhaps most important, to ban this book is to take away a lifeline for readers who are experiencing abuse. These kids know what adults often don’t. Books aren’t the problem; they are part of the solution.


*A NOTE ON AGE RANGES 

A publisher-suggested age range covers the gamut of readers that publishers envision using the book, whether for independent reading, family sharing, group study, or in other ways. Educators have the best sense of the appropriate age range for the diverse learners they work with and understand these ranges vary depending on a book’s intended use.

Read the full Book Résumé here.
 

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Banned Books Week 2024: Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023 - Books 7 and 8

"I believe that censorship is the enemy of freedom. By banning books, we deny ourselves the opportunity to learn from the past and to envision a braver future. Books have the power to open minds and build bridges. This is why certain forces do not want the masses to engage with books. They fear progress and growth in new, bold directions. For this reason, Banned Books Week is vitally important. It is a celebration of our right to access varied voices and to engage with ideas that challenge and champion us. I am honored to be selected as honorary chair of Banned Book Week for this election year, and I stand with my fellow readers, fellow writers and fellow advocates around the world who refuse to let voices be silenced." 

— 2024 Banned Books Week Honorary Chair Ava DuVernay

Read my Banned Books Week kick-off post here.

Below are books seven and eight (these titles were tied) of the top ten most challenged books of 2023 with their Book Résumés.

7/8. (tie) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Number of challenges: 56
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, profanity

Excerpts from the Book Résumé:

The New York Times bestselling novel that inspired the hit film! 

This is the funniest book you’ll ever read about death. It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he’s figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. Make mediocre films with the one person who is even sort of his friend, Earl. 

This plan works for exactly eight hours. Then Greg’s mom forces him to become friends with a girl who has cancer. This brings about the destruction of Greg’s entire life. 

Fiercely funny, honest, heart-breaking—this is an unforgettable novel from a bright talent, now also a film that critics are calling "a touchstone for its generation" and "an instant classic."

RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES 

Central Bucks School District 

• Reconsideration Outcome: The literary work will remain on the library shelves and no change to its inclusion in any library will be made. 

Readington Township Public Schools 

• Findings and Recommendation: The committee recommends that Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews remain in the RMS library as a text for self-selection and continue to be identified as a teenage selection for our 8th grade students or those students demonstrating advanced maturity levels. Parents have the option of contacting the library and asking for their child’s access to this book to be limited. 
• Findings and Rationale: See document linked above for full rationale
  It is the committee’s position that when books are self-selected by students for leisure reading or independent reading assignments, it is the right and responsibility of a student and their family to make determinations regarding what is or is not appropriate for the student to read. It is the school district's responsibility to provide reading material suited to the students' varied interests, reading levels, and maturation levels.
  

Eanes Westlake Innovative School District 

• Decision: The committee decided to keep this book at the middle school libraries. This decision will also be enacted at the high school level. 
  
  
• Discussion: See document linked above for full rationale 
  This book is currently available in the library for voluntary check-out and is not used as an instructional material in a class.
  
  The book addresses different learning styles for students. It is written in a unique multi-modal format switching between paragraphs and script-like dialogue. The book infuses humor, often in the form of a teenage stream of consciousness, around social situations and the difficult concept of death. The literary style and physical format can engage students and add accessibility for reluctant readers.
  
  Different family structures, ethnicities, religions and socio-economic backgrounds are reflected in the characters. This allows students to see a diversity in characters and highlights that people from very different backgrounds can support and learn from each other.
  
  The book shows teenagers struggling with fitting into social groups and navigating relationships with friends and family. The main teenage character demonstrates times of low confidence, awkwardness in social situations, and disappointment in not living up to societal expectations of behavior. These are common feelings for students and make the characters relatable. The book allows students to examine their own attitudes, behaviors, duties, and responsibilities around friendships, parental expectations, and societal norms.
  
  The book provides an authentic voice for teenagers coping with death and demonstrates that people may have varied responses to grief. Many students have been faced with the death of a family member or friend, and this provides an opportunity for them to have their feelings and emotions validated.
  
  The book does contain passages with profanity and sexual language that some may find objectionable, especially if that is the only context in which the book is viewed. However, when taken as a literary text on the whole, there are redeeming qualities around engagement, literary elements, diversity, and self-reflection and acceptance. 

*A NOTE ON AGE RANGES 

A publisher-suggested age range covers the gamut of readers that publishers envision using the book, whether for independent reading, family sharing, group study, or in other ways. Educators have the best sense of the appropriate age range for the diverse learners they work with and understand these ranges vary depending on a book’s intended use. 

Read the full Book Résumé here.

7/8. (tie) Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

Number of challenges: 56
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, drugs, rape, LGBTQIA+ content

Excerpts from the Book Résumé:

Meet five teens: Eden Streit, Seth Parnell, Whitney Lang, Ginger Cordell, and Cody Bennett. They're from different walks of life--some are rich; some are poor; some are from nuclear families; others are not. Regardless of upbringing, they share common needs: love, acceptance, safety, and family. Eden has a secret love affair and is the daughter of a hellfire-and-brimstone preaching father; Seth, aching over the death of his mother, is a gay farm kid and hides his sexuality from his father; Whitney is good-looking and smart, but lives in the shadow of her "better" older sister and her critical mother and semi-absent father; Ginger lives in poverty with her drug-using, sexually deviant, and abusive mother; and Cody, suffering the loss of his stepfather, shoulders his mother's emotional and financial needs. All five are betrayed or "tricked" by someone they love and turn down brutal paths in which they experience even deeper deception. What will they do to be loved? To survive? Can they return home? Their stories begin in alternating vignettes and interweave into one explosive Las Vegas ending.

*A NOTE ON AGE RANGES 

A publisher-suggested age range covers the gamut of readers that publishers envision using the book, whether for independent reading, family sharing, group study, or in other ways. Educators have the best sense of the appropriate age range for the diverse learners they work with and understand these ranges vary depending on a book’s intended use.

Read the full Book Résumé here.

https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

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Banned Books Week 2024: Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023 - Books 4 - 6

Because many book challenges are not reported to the ALA or covered by the press, the Top Most Challenged Books lists and data compiled by ALA represent only a snapshot of book challenges. A challenge to a book may be resolved in favor of retaining the book in the collection, or it can result in a book being restricted or withdrawn from the library. 

https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

Read my Banned Books Week kick-off post here.

Below are books four through six of the top ten most challenged books of 2023 with their Book Résumés.

4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Number of challenges: 68
Challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, LGBTQIA+ content, rape, drugs, profanity

Excerpts from the Book Résumé:

The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up. 

A years-long #1 New York Times bestseller, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and Best Book for Reluctant Readers, and with millions of copies in print, this novel for teen readers (or “wallflowers” of more-advanced age) will make you laugh, cry, and perhaps feel nostalgic for those moments when you, too, tiptoed onto the dance floor of life.

RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES 

NCAC DEFENDS PLACE OF THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER IN IOWA CLASSROOMS; UPDATE: COMMITTEE VOTES IN FAVOR OF KEEPING THE BOOK 

Author Responds to Attempts to Ban the Perks of Being a Wallflower 

AUTHOR STATEMENT 

 “This book is my love letter and wish for every kid who is struggling with identity, because at the time I was writing it, I was struggling with my own.”—Stephen Chbosky 

“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes out ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.”—Stephen Chbosky

*A NOTE ON AGE RANGES 

A publisher-suggested age range covers the gamut of readers that publishers envision using the book, whether for independent reading, family sharing, group study, or in other ways. Educators have the best sense of the appropriate age range for the diverse learners they work with and understand these ranges vary depending on a book’s intended use.

Read the full Book Résumé here.

5. Flamer by Mike Curato

Number of challenges: 67
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit

Excerpts from the Book Résumé:

Award-winning author and artist Mike Curato draws on his own experiences in Flamer, his debut graphic novel, telling a difficult story with humor, compassion, and love. 

I know I’m not gay. Gay boys like other boys. I hate boys. They’re mean, and scary, and they’re always destroying something or saying something dumb or both. 

I hate that word. Gay. It makes me feel . . . unsafe. 

It's the summer between middle school and high school, and Aiden Navarro is away at camp. Everyone's going through changes—but for Aiden, the stakes feel higher. As he navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can't stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance.

RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES 

Wentzville School District: The book is relatable to many teenagers, the targeted audience, in that many and all go through many of the same struggles that the main character goes through in this book. From self-esteem, sexuality, peer pressure, bullying and issues and at home, we see the struggles he has and can put ourselves in their shoes and relate. Knowing there is a positive outcome in the end shows to others relating to these struggles that there is hope and we can get through it.

Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Statement of Support: Flamer is an award-winning graphic novel that tells the story of Aiden Navarro “as he navigates friendships, deals with bullies, and spends time with Elias (a boy he can’t stop thinking about), he finds himself on a path of self-discovery and acceptance.” This graphic novel is just one of many books currently being challenged for relaying a story from one of the LGBTQ+ perspectives. 

As with many challenges targeting LGBTQ+ graphic novels, those surrounding Flamer falsely accuse the book of being pornography or containing explicit sexual images. In 2022, a parent from Katy ISD filed a criminal complaint that the district was providing material harmful to minors. Though the claim was found unsubstantiated, the book was removed from the shelves and relocated to the police department, where it could be processed. This challenge demonstrates the growing trend of citizens attempting to ignore the proper review process and intimidate educators, librarians, and administrators. Flamer has been challenged across the country and was included on the “Krause List” as a book to remove.

Eanes Westlake School District (Austin, TX): The decision was made to keep this book in the middle school libraries with a Young Adult (YA) label that will allow 8th grade parents to opt out of the book and 6th and 7th grade parents to opt into the book beginning in the 2023-24 school year. As early as elementary school, some of our students begin to question their sexual orientation. LGBTQ+ students deserve to have access to books about their fears, struggles and inner turmoil about life, friendship, love and identity just like any hetero normative child. Due to some of the content and themes and the fact that the book contains profanity, sexual references and suicidal ideation, it may not be suited or of interest for all middle school students, including younger middle school students.

Westport Connecticut Rationale: Place principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice; be appropriate to the varied interests, abilities, and levels of maturity of students in form, structure, and content; be based upon critical review in educational and professional journals, in current periodicals, or through professional analysis.

*A NOTE ON AGE RANGES 

A publisher-suggested age range covers the gamut of readers that publishers envision using the book, whether for independent reading, family sharing, group study, or in other ways. Educators have the best sense of the appropriate age range for the diverse learners they work with and understand these ranges vary depending on a book’s intended use.

Read the full Book Résumé here.

6. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Number of challenges: 62
Challenged for: rape, incest, claimed to be sexually explicit, EDI content

In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an eleven-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.

RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES 

Banned Books 2023 — The Bluest Eye — Marshall Libraries (2004–2023) 

Students sued when a school district restricted several books. The school board reinstated one novel (2022) 

Toni Morrison book ban reversed by SoCal school district (2020)

Read the full Book Résumé here.

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Banned Books Week 2024: Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023 - Books 1 - 3

"The American Library Association condemns censorship and works to defend each person's right to read under the First Amendment and to ensure free access to information. Every year, ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) compiles a list of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools. The lists are based on information from reports filed by library professionals and community members, as well as news stories published throughout the United States."  https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

Read my Banned Books Week kick-off post here.

Below are the top three most challenged books of 2023 with their Book Résumés.

1. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

Number of challenges: 106
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit

Excerpts from the Book Résumé:

In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.

Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.

AUTHOR STATEMENT 

“Queer youth are often forced to look outside their own homes, and outside the education system, to find information on who they are. Removing or restricting queer books in libraries and schools is like cutting a lifeline for queer youth, who might not yet even know what terms to ask Google to find out more about their own identities, bodies and health.” – Maia Kobabe 

*A NOTE ON AGE RANGES 

A publisher-suggested age range covers the gamut of readers that publishers envision using the book, whether for independent reading, family sharing, group study, or in other ways. Educators have the best sense of the appropriate age range for the diverse learners they work with and understand these ranges vary depending on a book’s intended use.

RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES 

• Review Committee Recommendation -  Gender Queer: A Memoir, Fairfax County Public Schools 

• Statement of Support for Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, October 17, 2021 

Read the full Book Résumé here.

2. All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

Number of challenges: 82
Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit

Excerpts from the Book Résumé:

In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. 

From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. 

Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.

RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES 

Review successful defenses of All Boys Aren’t Blue online here. 

*A NOTE ON AGE RANGES 

A publisher-suggested age range covers the gamut of readers that publishers envision using the book, whether for independent reading, family sharing, group study, or in other ways. Educators have the best sense of the appropriate age range for the diverse learners they work with and understand these ranges vary depending on a book’s intended use.

Read the full Book Résumé here.

3. This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson

Number of challenges: 71

Challenged for: LGBTQIA+ content, sex education, claimed to be sexually explicit

Excerpts from the Book Résumé:

The bestselling young adult non-fiction book on sexuality and gender! 

Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Queer. Intersex. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who's ever dared to wonder. This book is for YOU. 

This candid, funny, and uncensored exploration of sexuality and what it's like to grow up LGBTQ also includes real stories from people across the gender and sexual spectrums, not to mention hilarious illustrations. Inside this revised and updated edition, you'll find the answers to all the questions you ever wanted to ask, with topics like: 

• Stereotypes—the facts and fiction 
• Coming out as LGBT 
• Where to meet people like you 
• The ins and outs of gay sex 
• How to flirt 
• And so much more! 

You will be entertained. You will be informed. But most importantly, you will know that however you identify (or don't) and whomever you love, you are exceptional. You matter. And so does this book. 

This book is for: 

• LGBTQIA+ teens, tweens, and adults 
• Readers looking to learn more about the LGBTQIA+ community 
• Parents of gay kids and other LGBT youth 
• Educators looking for advice about the LGBTQIA+ community

RESPONSE TO CHALLENGES 

The Iowa City Community School District: For any students who just want to know what it means to be gay and what it means to be trans, they can read this book for basic information that is scientifically accurate. There isn’t anything in here that you wouldn’t already know about heterosexual sex. You get information about heterosexual sex in sex ed and you don’t get any about other forms of sexual intimacy. 

Hilton Central School District: I would tell the students of the district that belong to that community that they are welcome here at Hilton Central School District as students within our public schools. We love them as we love our other students. We are absolutely sorry that a debate around a piece of literature is making them feel as if they are not included or welcome. 

AUTHOR STATEMENT 

Watch Juno Dawson’s statement on Instagram 

*A NOTE ON AGE RANGES 

A publisher-suggested age range covers the gamut of readers that publishers envision using the book, whether for independent reading, family sharing, group study, or in other ways. Educators have the best sense of the appropriate age range for the diverse learners they work with and understand these ranges vary depending on a book’s intended use.

 

Read the full Book Résumé here.

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Banned Books Week 2024: September 22 - 28 - Freed Between the Lines!

Things are really going south in our country, and when the handling of books is beginning to look like a page out of Fahrenheit 451, it really is frightening.

"The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has released new data documenting book challenges throughout the United States, finding that challenges of unique titles surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022 numbers, reaching the highest level ever documented by ALA. 

OIF documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship, as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources in 2023. Four key trends emerged from the data gathered from 2023 censorship reports:

• Pressure groups in 2023 focused on public libraries in addition to targeting school libraries. The number of titles targeted for censorship at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, accounting for about 46% of all book challenges in 2023; school libraries saw an 11% increase over 2022 numbers.
  
  
• Groups and individuals demanding the censorship of multiple titles, often dozens or hundreds at a time, drove this surge.
  
  
• Titles representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47% of those targeted in censorship attempts.
  
  
• There were attempts to censor more than 100 titles in each of these 17 states: Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin."

Read the full announcement here.

Something new I discovered on the ALA's Banned Books site this year...Book Resumes. 

Unite Against Banned Books: Book Resumes states: 

"Book Résumés help teachers, librarians, parents, and community members defend books from censorship. They detail each title’s significance and educational value and are easy to share with administrators, book review committees, elected officials, and board members."

So, my focus for this year's Banned Books Week will be on these Book Resumes to get the word out on what these libraries, schools, and communities are losing when books are censored. I will probably tie this in (mostly) with the Top 10 Books Challenged in 2023.

I hope you will join me. 

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Banned Books Week 2023 - Toni Morrison's Beloved

As promised, I'm sharing the banned/challenged books we are reading this year for the 1000 Books Project at Gather Together and Read. Today the focus is on why Toni Morrison's Beloved has been banned or challenged. We are reading Beloved next month and it's our final book for this year's 1000 Books Project. 

In Florida’s Polk County, Nobel Literature Prize-winner Toni Morrison’s novels The Bluest Eye and Morrison’s Beloved were among 16 books “quarantined”—taken off shelves in public school libraries “so a thorough, thoughtful review of their content can take place,” a spokesperson explained to The Ledger—on Jan. 25 after a complaint. Less than a week earlier, a school board in Wentzville, Missouri had voted 4-3 to remove The Bluest Eye from the district’s high school libraries at a board meeting on Jan. 20. The decisions are just two examples of a wave of book bans and challenges to school libraries’ content currently occurring across the U.S.

The board members overruled recommendations by a committee of educators who reviewed the novel after a parent objected to depictions of pedophilia, incest, and rape. That committee had voted 8-1 to retain the book in district libraries. “This novel helps the reader step into and understand 1941 (pre WWII, pre civil rights movement), small town Black culture in a way no textbook can do,” the committee wrote in a report. “Removing the work would infringe on the rights of parents and students to decide for themselves if they want to read this work of literature.”

Morrison’s works are a regular fixture on the American Library Association (ALA)’s annual list of the top 10 most challenged books. The Bluest Eye has appeared several times, in 2006, 2013, 2014, and 2020. Beloved, Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 novel, is also on the 2006 and 2012 lists. And in the mid-1990s, Song of Solomon was repeatedly challenged in school districts in Colorado, Florida, and Georgia for “inappropriate” and “explicit” material.

In Oct. 2021, a Virginia mom who tried to get Beloved banned from her son’s high school in 2013 was featured in an ad for then-gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, who made education a core part of his platform. He won the governorship the next month. (In 2016 and 2017, then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe—Youngkin’s opponent in the 2021 election—had vetoed so-called “Beloved bills,” efforts to enable parents to opt their children out from reading sexually-explicit novels at schools.)

Scholars say one of the reasons Morrison’s books in particular are controversial is because they address, unabashedly, nearly all of the above, centering on dark moments in American history that can be uncomfortable for some people to talk about. Beloved, for example, is inspired by the true story of an enslaved woman, Margaret Garner, who killed her daughter in 1856 to spare her from slavery.

“What she tried to do is convey the trauma of the legacy of slavery to her readers. That is a violent legacy,” says Emily Knox, author of Book Banning in 21st-Century America, of Morrison’s body of work. “Her books do not sugarcoat or use euphemisms. And that is actually what people have trouble with.”

Source: Why Toni Morrison's Books Are So Often the Target of Book Bans - TIME Magazine

Who Initiates Challenges?

Prior to 2020, the vast majority of challenges to library books and resources were brought by a single parent who sought to remove or restrict access to a book their child was reading. However, in 2022, 90% of reported book challenges were demands to censor multiple titles - and of those demands to censor library books, 40% sought to remove or restrict more than 100 books all at once.

These numbers and the list of the Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022 are evidence of a growing, well-organized, conservative political movement, the goals of which include removing books about race, history, gender identity, sexuality, and reproductive health from America's public and school libraries that do not meet their approval. Using social media and other channels, these groups distribute book lists to their local chapters and individual adherents, who then utilize the lists to initiate a mass challenge that can empty the shelves of a library.

Information obtained from the ALA Book Ban Data page

New data shows record surge of challenges in public libraries

CHICAGO — The American Library Association (ALA) has released new preliminary data documenting the continued rise in attempts to censor books and materials in public, school and academic libraries during the first eight months in 2023.

Between January 1 and August 31, 2023, ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) reported 695 attempts to censor library materials and services and documented challenges to 1,915 unique titles.* The number of unique titles challenged has increased by 20 percent from the same reporting period in 2022, the year in which the highest number of book challenges occurred since ALA began compiling this data more than 20 years ago. Most of the challenges were to books written by or about a person of color or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Challenges to books in public libraries accounted for 49 percent of those OIF documented, compared to 16 percent during the same reporting period in 2022. The largest contributor to the rise in both the number of censorship attempts and the increase in titles challenged continues to be a single challenge by a person or group demanding the removal or restriction of multiple titles.

• As in 2022, 9 in 10 of the overall number of books challenged were part of an attempt to censor multiple titles.
• Cases documenting a challenge to 100 or more books were reported in 11 states, compared to six during the same reporting period in 2022 and zero in 2021.

In the past, most challenges to library resources only sought to remove or restrict a single book.   

“These attacks on our freedom to read should trouble every person who values liberty and our constitutional rights,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “To allow a group of people or any individual, no matter how powerful or loud, to become the decision-maker about what books we can read or whether libraries exist, is to place all of our rights and liberties in jeopardy.”

Source: American Library Association Releases Preliminary Data on 2023 Book Challenges - ALA News

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Banned Books Week 2023 - Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits

As promised, I'm sharing the banned/challenged books we are reading this year for the 1000 Books Project at Gather Together and Read. Today the focus is on why Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits has been banned or challenged.

House of the Spirits weaves intricate themes of family systems, gender roles, political extremism, and social inequality under the guise of absurdity. However, the intentional subversion and obscurity of historical events, reminiscent of many other magical realism novels, creates a certain discomfort and distrust that has likely set the stage for several challenges and contentions in schools.

Though the novel has never been officially banned, it has faced several challenges in schools since the time of its publication in 1982, often being characterized as “pornagraphic”, “immoral” and “defaming the Catholic faith”. The most recent, and perhaps most significant, challenge came about in 2013 when several parents at a North Carolina high school raised formal complaints to the school board regarding the book being a part of the English curriculum. The book was retained after three appeals and a defense letter from Isabel Allende herself. In the letter, the author writes:

“I find myself in the unusual and awkward position of having to “defend” my novel The House of the Spirits that risks being banned from a high school in Boone, North Carolina. Banning of books is a common practice in police states, like Cuba or North Korea, and by religious fundamentalist groups like the Taliban, but I did not expect it in our democracy…”Isabelle Allende

The novel has won several awards worldwide, including Best Novel of the Year (Chile, 1983), Author of the Year and Book of the Year (Germany, 1984), Grand Prix D’Evasion (France, 1984), Best Novel (Mexico, 1985), Point de Mire (Belgium, 1985), XV Premio Internazionale I Migliori Dell”Anno (Italy, 1987), Best Foreign Novel (Portugal, 1987), Books to Remember Award, American Library Association (USA, 1996), and The New York Public Library (2000).

Source: The Banned Books Project @Carnegie Mellon University

Community Divided Over The House of the Spirits as Final Banning Decision Draws Near

February 13, 2014

Back in November, CBLDF co-signed a letter defending Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits after an outraged parent filed complains against the book being taught in her son’s honors English class. After months of review, the Watauga county school board held a meeting Monday evening to debate the future of the book in the North Carolina high school.

The controversy began when Chastity Lesesne objected to the book being part of the curriculum based on what she called “pornographic” depictions of sexual situations. The House of the Spirits follows Allende and her family through the Chilean Revolution of the 1970s and does depict sex, violence, and rape as part of the story, but the book is used extensively in high school classrooms around the country. It was reviewed and recommended for the grade level by the North Carolina Department of Instruction, and any student who preferred not to read the material was allowed to complete an alternate assignment. In spite of a scant number of students ever objecting to the material, Lesesne chose to raise formal complaints and, after two votes to retain the book (both of which were unanimous), continued to fight back through the appeals process. Monday’s hearing was the result of her final appeal, which was made in December.

The Winston-Salem Journal provided an overview of the meeting, which was open to the public and included a prepared statement by Franklin Graham, son of Reverend Billy Graham, who obviously was unaware that alternate reading selections were available.

“As a parent and grandparent, I’m very concerned about what our children are asked to read and, in some cases, forced to read,” he said.

Fortunately, supporters of Mary Kent Whitaker, the teacher involved in the controversy, also spoke on behalf of keeping the book in the curriculum.

“Obviously I have a professional stake in books being banned, but I was really surprised,” said Fischer, an associate professor of English at Appalachian State University whose son was in Whitaker’s class last year. “I have taught in Mary Kent Whitaker’s class and she seems to be to be fair and intellectually honest with the kids. This is for an honors class, and that’s supposed to prepare you to think on your own and for college.”

Parents weren’t the only ones to send a message of support for free speech — the afternoon before the hearing, students as well as parents showed up in Whitaker’s classroom to deliver gifts and messages of encouragement. Whitaker commented:

“Students were in my room talking about the book and the idea of banning books from the curriculum. It was a mature and sophisticated and compassionate discussion.”

Source: CBLDF

Outcome of the above case:

Challenged in the Watauga County (NC) High School curriculum because of the book’s graphic nature. After a five-month process, the book was fully retained at a third and final appeal hearing.

Source: Marshall Libraries @Marshall University

A publicly documented case of a censorship attempt...

Urbandale, Iowa: Urbandale Community School District

In July 2023, the Des Moines Register obtained a list of 374 books that the district had flagged for removal without knowing if the district even owned the books. The justification for the list was to comply with a state law (SF 496) that went into effect in July and set to begin imposing penalties in January 2024. The law is focused on defining what books are deemed age-appropriate in Iowa schools with a focus on topics addressing sex, sex education, sexual orientation and gender identity. A school district spokesperson stated the district was “to provide guidance to K-12 teachers about books that might violate the state law.” In response to protests, the list was revised to 65 books. Among the books removed from school libraries were The Kite Runner, The Handmaid's Tale, Brave New World, Beloved, The Color Purple, Native Son, Gender Queer, All Boys Aren't Blue, and The Hate U Give.

Information obtained from the ALA Book Ban Data page

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Banned Books Week 2023 - Huxley's Brave New World

As promised, I'm sharing the banned/challenged books we are reading this year for the 1000 Books Project at Gather Together and Read. Today the focus is on why Aldous Huxley's Brave New World has been banned or challenged.

A favorite among book challengers for nearly 80 years, Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel was banned in Ireland shortly after publication. With its themes of sexual promiscuity, drug use and suicide, "Brave New World" tells a story in a bleak future where the populace is manipulated and controlled by the state. Schools in Miller, Mo., banned "Brave New World" in 1980 because of its characters' acceptance of promiscuous sex.

The book was challenged as required reading in the Corona-Norco, Calif., Unified School District in 1993 because it "centered around negative activity". The challengers cited the school's health curriculum, which taught sexual abstinence, and said the characters of "Brave New World" went against those teachings. A challenge in Mercedes, Texas, on the basis of adult content, resulted in the school board's ruling that school principals must offer alternate reading selections if parents challenge a book on a reading list.

Source: Banned Books Week: Banned BOOKS in the Library - Albright College

Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel, set in London in the year 2540 (632 A.F. in the book), has also become one of the most frequently censored books in literary history. It was #52 of the 100 most banned books of 1990-2001 and one of the 10 most frequently challenged books of 2010 according to the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom for themes of sexuality, drugs, and suicide. Incidentally, it was the only classic on the list for that year.

The school board in Baxley, Georgia, banned “Brave New World,” along with John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”, and Richard Wright’s “Native Son” because a local church minister objected to the contexts, despite many of the community’s parents and teachers approving of the book.

Other reasons for banning it throughout the years in the United States include insensitivity and racism.

“Brave New World” has been challenged in Glen Burnie, Maryland for too much sexual content; while on the opposite coast it found itself in trouble in Seattle after a parent complained that the book has a “high volume of racially offensive, derogatory language, and misinformation on Native Americans. In addition to the inaccurate imagery, and stereotype views, the text lacks literary value which is relevant to today’s contemporary multicultural society.”

Perhaps Huxley foreshadowed the onslaught of censorship attempts his novel would endure in one of the most memorable dialogues of “Brave New World,” which is a fitting discussion point for any debate on censorship and book banning. Remembering Shakespeare, the character, John, says, “You got rid of them. Yes, that’s just like you- getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether ’tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them… But you don’t do either.”

John also claims the “right to be unhappy,” and Mustapha says it’s also “the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what might happen tomorrow.”

The common thinking is that utopia is some far-off goal of the future, a state of being far removed from that of the present day; but utopia and dystopia are merely two sides of the same coin.

Part of what makes this book so controversial is the very thing that makes it so timeless- we want to believe that technology has the power to cure all, but Huxley shows the dangers all too well.

By removing all of the world’s sorrows and ills, humanity also rids itself of the true pleasures in life. There’s no real passion in a fixed and engineered society; no creativity; and no individuality. To know the pleasure, you must first know the pain. That’s the difference between having a life and living a life.

Source: Banned Books Awareness: “Brave New World” - Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge

A publicly documented case of a censorship attempt...

Clinton, Tennessee: Clinton Public Library

In February 2023, the library board voted against a proposal to create a special section of their library to house books related to gender identity and sexual orientation. The conversation was spurred by challenges to Grandad’s Camper, It Feels Good to be Yourself, and Families like Mine from members of a group that advocates for the censorship of library material with LGBTQIA+ representation. While the books were retained where they were originally shelved, members of the group went on to challenge numerous additional titles with LGBTQIA+ representation, including literary memoirs and sex education titles. The group has recently begun calling for the library director’s resignation and threatening community members who have publicly defended access to these resources. In August, the mayor of Anderson County and four county commissioners asked the sheriff to investigate whether 17 books available at public libraries, including Clinton Public Library, violate Tennessee’s criminal obscenity laws. Prosecutors have not brought charges.

Information obtained from the ALA Book Ban Data page.

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