Highlights and Lowlights from 2023 in Book Banning News: Book Censorship News, December 22, 2023

Lawsuits

The first lawsuit over book bans hit Escambia County, Florida, schools in May of 2023. Since then, several others have been filed across the country. The Escambia lawsuits will be heard in 2024 and will play a significant role in the future of book bans.

Legislature

Illinois became the first state to ban book bans. The language around this bill is a little lofty, as the bill does not ban book bans but incentivizes libraries to include the Library Bill of Rights or similar intellectual freedom statements in their policies. Still, it set a powerful standard, and several other states have put forward anti-censorship bills.

Anti-Censorship Wins at the Polls

There was a lot of celebration in November when the bulk of the candidates Moms For Liberty endorsed in local school board elections were not elected. This isn’t the interesting story — just the most headline-worthy and one which has inaccurately described the outcome as the end of censorship (the fact a founder but former active member of the group has been caught in a sex scandal isn’t it, either, despite the headlines).

Librarians Are Leaving the Field — Or Being Forced Out

Unfortunately, it might have been too late for many librarians, who are leaving the field amid several factors. Three of the biggest? A lack of support for their work, book bans, and the daily barrage of name-calling they encounter from small pockets of their community (and larger pockets of the internet and right-wing instigators). Read Florida librarian Tania Galiñanes’s story here and the stories of Missouri school librarians here. You’ll also want to read Elissa Myers’s story of being queer in a public library where LGBTQ+ content was targeted — and why she is no longer at that job.

More Groups Doing More Good Work

This year marked the launch of EveryLibrary’s powerful, free organizing tool, Fight for the First. It has been a resource utilized by dozens of grassroots anti-censorship groups to coordinate how to protect the freedom to read in their own communities while tapping the knowledge and resources of those doing similar work across the country.

Book Censorship News: December 22, 2023

• “A total of 673 books, from classics to best-sellers, have been removed from Orange County classrooms this year for fear they violate new state rules that ban making ‘sexual conduct’ available to public school students […] The books run the gamut, from John Milton’s 17th-century epic poem Paradise Lost to John Grisham’s 1991 New York Times bestseller The Firm. John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and John Irving’s The World According to Garp made the list, too. The list also includes popular novels by Stephen King, Sue Monk Kidd and Jodi Picoult, classics like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Jude the Obscure, and Madame Bovary, and award-winning books like A Thousand Acres, Beloved, and Love in the Time of Cholera.” Welcome to the new Florida law being applied in a district. It’s the second to last week of the year, so this story will likely fly under the radar…which is also probably kind of hoped for. Almost 700 books.
• Meanwhile, over 1000 books are off limits to students in Escambia County, Florida, schools for review. It’s likely students won’t see these books for a long time, if ever. More on Escambia from The Washington Post.
• There’s now a portal in the state of Alabama where folks can report naughty books. I think I’ve seen this before…
• The school district in West Ada, Idaho, went ahead and quietly banned 10 books last week. Guess what review tool they used to make their decisions on this? If it’s BookLooks, then you’ve paid attention. The books were A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard, Collected Poems 1947-1980 by Allen Ginsberg, Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas, Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas, Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood and adapted by Renee Nault, The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur, Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, and You: A Novel by Caroline Kepnes.
• Thanks to new made-up obscenity issues, the Grand Forks Public Library (ND) has gotten its first book challenge in years. Thought we weren’t going after public libraries?
• Not to be outdone by the school board member in Central Bucks who was sworn in on a stack of banned books, some of the new members of the Fairfax County School Board in Virginia did the same. Now to see some action from these board members.
• The Post-Gazette looked at how many times the books being challenged in local school districts, Blackhawk and Pine-Richland (PA), were being checked out. I suppose this is useful information for…something? Many students never bother checking out the books they read and more, we know for a fact that students aren’t borrowing these books because of the rise of book bans. Book bans are driving students away from reading, period.
• “Someone called the police last Friday. About a book. What happened next outraged the school community and left them in disbelief. After the complaint, Great Barrington police and the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office began investigating whether the illustrated novel, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, was inappropriate content for an eighth grade classroom at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School.” Massachusetts, this is you.
• Six books were removed from Hernando County Schools (FL). A school board member used the phrase “nasty nasty vulgar filthy” to describe an out-of-context passage from…The Hate U Give.
• Ottumwa Schools (IA) released the 30 book titles they’ve removed from the district per the new state bigotry law.
• “Carroll County’s Board of Education [MD] is asking community members to comment on proposed revisions to the school system’s policy on selection, evaluation and adoption of instructional materials. The revisions seek to define ‘sexually explicit content,’ in order to ensure such content is not included in school materials.” This is going to end well.
• The judge overseeing the lawsuit in Escambia County Schools (FL) will begin in January.
• Some regressive action was taken on the Texas READER Act. Catch up on what this law means for books in the state and how the government is deciding what kids can or cannot access. “We don’t coparent with the government” folks cheer this on.
• Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas will remain on shelves in Brainerd High School (MN).
• Pickaway County Library Board (OH) will keep the book Making a Baby in the children’s section…so it can, you know, reach the audience it was written for.
• “Alles, who had the support of congregants from the church he attends, North Park Wesleyan, spoke about censorship and read what he considered to be some of the ‘explicit’ sections in the book he challenged, including information about dating apps and diagrams about the human body. Alles said that applying the word ‘censorship’ to his challenge to move the Dawson book to the adult section of the library was ‘intellectually dishonest.’ Teens, he pointed out, have access to the adult section.” Shocker all around. This is Cuba Library in New York, and no decision has been rendered yet on the future of This Book Is Gay.
• The latest Keller Independent School District (TX) meeting was an utter shit show, with one of the few rational school board members walking out after it was decided that chaplains could volunteer on campus. This is a PUBLIC school district.
• The impact of 2 years of book banning on school libraries. This piece is centered on Wentzville, Missouri, one of the districts that removed my book from shelves (whether it’s back on the shelf is unknown). It’s an excellent and far too common story.
• “Local pastor Paul Thompson asked the board to reconsider its decision on Gender Queer, although library policy states the results of reconsideration decisions stand for five years.” This is in Dothan, Alabama. Same story over and over. Good thing he’s got a state-sponsored snitch line now.
• Most of Pulaski County, Arkansas, students will once again be able to access online educational materials via the Central Arkansas Library System. Recall this was revoked, leaving some 11,000 students without library resource access. It was over nonsense, of course.
• It was the Bible last year. This year, the Davis School District (UT) is reviewing the appropriateness of the Quran.
• “Leavenworth School District Board of Education [KS] voted 4-3 this week to pass revisions to an education policy that bans ‘gender identity’ and ‘sexual orientation’ references in the district’s elementary library books.” In other words, the district just banned LGBTQ+ books from elementary school libraries.
• Cumberland-North Yarmouth School Board (ME) will keep Gender Queer on shelves. It’ll shock you to know that, like in other challenges to the book in the state, when the board read it, they saw how important it was.
• Lafayette Parish Public Library (LA) falls for the nonsense rhetoric around the American Library Association and canceled its membership to the organization.
• In St. Charles County Public Libraries (MO), books with “explicit photographs of sexual intercourse or sexual acts” will be removed from library shelves. Whatever that means…(you know what that means).
• Remember Quarryville Public Library (PA)? One of the townships refused to give their annual donation because of LGBTQ+ books, and Johnny Weir made a donation to make up for it? Another township the library serves is refusing to make their donation because of LGBTQ+ books. This is going to really hurt the library, including cuts to programs and possibly staff.
• Lake Luzerne’s public library now has three new board members after being closed for months because of people leaving both the library staff and the board. All of it over queer panic, y’all.