What 100-Year-Old Grace Linn Can Teach Us About Standing Up for the Freedom to Read: Book Censorship News, March 31, 2023

Grace Linn is a 100-year-old widow of a WWII veteran, a grandmother, and a craftivist. On Tuesday, she spoke at a Martin County, Florida school board meeting to protest the removal of 80+ books from the school library. Her statement has gotten a lot of media coverage, and she was later interviewed on MSNBC, Fox 35, and more. That’s for good reason, because in a speech that lasted only a few minutes, she’s effectively demonstrated what’s needed to fight back against censorship.

Kelly Jensen is taking a much-needed break this week, so I’m filling in for the Censorship News Roundup. One of the questions Kelly and other anti-censorship activists and groups receive the most often is, “What can we do? How can I help?” The Censorship Round Up archive is filled with so many ways to help, from voting to calling your representative to speaking up in school board and library board meetings and more. We also have an anticensorship tool lit. We even compiled and updated resources into an ebook: How to Fight Book Bans and Censorship. The resources are there. But it’s up to you to act, and Grace Linn shows exactly how to do that. Here are some of the lessons she provides, from easiest to the more challenging!

We haven’t all lived 100 years to draw on, but there’s a reason you’re passionate about this topic. Some people talk about how books have been life-saving in their own life. Others talk about loved ones who are affected by book bans.

Book banning groups tap into people’s fear and anger to go viral. Evoking emotion is a powerful tool, but there are so many better ways to do that. A personal story about the joy and acceptance you found in reading a book that represented you is also emotional, but in a more positive war.

I hope that this inspires you to follow in Grace Linn’s footsteps!

If you are a literary agent, don’t forget to fill out Kelly’s survey about whether you’ve seen book banning have an effect on book acquisitions. And if you aren’t a literary agent, please boost it on social media to get it to the right people!

Book Censorship News: March 31, 2023

• Missouri lawmakers have voted to defund their libraries, cutting all $4.5 million in state funding. Republican Representative Cody Smith said the funding cut was because of the lawsuit American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed fighting book banning legislation. Smith said, “I don’t think we should subsidize that effort, so we’re going to take out the funding.” A representative of the ACLU said, “If the members of the committee are concerned about preserving taxpayer funds, they should stop enacting laws they know do not meet constitutional muster, not burden local governments in a misguided effort to silence organizations who object to the legislature’s overreach.”
• Indy Reads, a literary nonprofit in Indianapolis, received a bomb threat for hosting a drag story hour.
• A Heyworth Junior High School (IL) teacher was fired — sorry, “involuntarily resigned” — because she had a copy of This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson in her classroom. This was not part of the curriculum. It was just one of the books in the classroom library.
• Louisiana Representative Clay Higgins wants to replace public libraries with church-owned libraries. He tweeted, “The libraries regular Americans recall are gone. They’ve become liberal grooming centers.”
• 100 Indiana elementary students held a walk-out to protest Indiana’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Third grader Scarlet Chavez said, “We are trying to protest to make sure that kids have rights and won’t be stopped from expressing their whole self.” (Those photos are simultaneously adorable and heartbreaking.)

• Jodi Picoult has been speaking about her books being banned, including on ABC News. She mentions that the strategy being used is to challenge huge amounts of books at a time, which means that the books will immediately be pulled and be held up in a very slow review process. That way, even if a book is eventually approved, it will have been kept off shelves for months — and may just be challenged again, starting the cycle over.
• Central York High School (PA) has removed Push by Sapphire for review. A student spoke out at the school board meeting, saying how important it is for her to see books with main characters that look like her, and said, “Why can’t we have our own mind — our own voice?” Dozens of students showed up to the meeting wearing red to protest the ban. Bizarrely, Superintendent Peter Aiken said during the meeting, “There’s no playbook for this.” Every school library should have a playbook for this — a set of guidelines on how to handle book challenges. After Central York has been in the news countless times for book bans in the last few years, it’s ridiculous to not have a policy hammered out.
• Galesburg-Augusta High School (MI) librarian Jerod Kauffman has spoken out about book challenge policies not being followed by the principal and district superintendent. Challenged books are supposed to stay on the shelves until the review is completed, according to policy. Superintendent Wendy Maynard-Somers said the book wasn’t removed from shelves; they just checked it out to review it…which accomplishes exactly the same thing.
• “The Spring Branch ISD [TX] School Board voted to allow the Board of Trustees to decide if books should be banned, without input from teachers and librarians.” The superintendent has said it’s temporary, because they have received such a huge amount of book challenges: “I’m not going to call my entire academic staff off to sit and listen to book challenges every day, all day while our kids don’t get what they need. So I’m asking for the board to assist me.” It claims that the district spent $30,000 and 226 staff hours on a single book challenge. Book reviews should take time and be carried out by professionals. This only rewards book banners for challenging a long list of titles at a time.
• A proposed Iowa bill would have any book that has been banned from one school removed from every school in the state.
• The Iowa Association of School Boards has said that if the Iowa bill passes, staff would have to read thousands of books at each school to ensure that no high school library books include “depictions of sex acts.”
• Tam Kelley tried to get You Know, Sex banned from Conway Public Library (AR), but instead she’s been banned, for taking the book from the children’s section without checking it out. (You know, stealing.)

• Fear-mongering about Gender Queer has spread to Australia.
• The Virgin Suicides has been pulled from the curriculum of an optional English class as North Smithfield High School (RI).
• The Disney movie Ruby Bridges has been pulled from North Shore Elementary school (FL) until it is reviewed, after a parent claimed it “might result in students learning white people hate Black people.”
• Hilton Central School District (NY) received ANOTHER bomb threat over LGBTQ+ books. Specifically, the bomb threat mentioned This Book Is Gay. That’s twice in one week the schools have been on lock out for bomb threats.
• This Book Is Gay has been banned at Hillsborough County (FL) middle schools.
• Alice Oseman spoke out after Heartstopper was removed from Clay County District Schools (FL).
• St. Tammany Library Control Board (LA) voted to keep all five books challenged, including I am Jazz and The Bluest Eye. When MJ Castillo spoke out about her experiences being bullied as an LGBTQ+ young person, someone with the book banning group the “Accountability Project” heckled her about the Nashville school shooter being transgender.
• After “Rainbowland” by Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton was banned from a Wisconsin elementary school, Miley Cyrus donated to Pride and Less Prejudice, which provides “free LGBTQ age-appropriate books to classrooms from preschool to third grade.”
• Missouri library workers are getting threatened with jail time for doing their jobs, and police are already showing up to investigate claims of them distributing pornography to minors. This article also shows how this fear has led to librarians self-censoring.
• Florida House Bill 1069, aka the “period ban” bill, would prevent discussion of menstruation, including between kids, for students younger than sixth grade. Here’s what five Florida teens think about the bill.
• A McKinney ISD school board member spoke in front of the Texas House Committee on Public Education in support of more restrictions around the books allowed in school libraries. He called The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison “a very disgusting book” and claims children are going to school in furry costumes.
• In response to Republicans advocating for book bans instead of gun regulation, Florida Democrat Jared Moskowitz said, “Dead kids can’t read.”