In the last year, campaigns to ban books in school and public libraries have more than doubled, according to the American Library Association. Typically, the Association records 300-350 complaints, with most targeting a specific title.
In 2021, however, the Association noted 729 complaints against 1,597 books.
What’s going on?
Two things:
1. Banning books is being used as a political tool to score points with one’s base. In this case, it’s not about the book.
2. More worrisome, however, are those who want to quash intellectual freedom.
An increasing number of individuals and groups are demanding control of what public and school librarians can have in their collections.
One such group is the Moms for Liberty, an organization formed in 2021 that purports it’s for “parental rights.” In truth, it’s a group with a right-wing agenda that forces school boards to ban books that they deem controversial.
In Brevard County, Florida, the Moms for Liberty have requested 41 books — just this year — be removed from area public schools including Kurt Vonnegut’s award-winning “Slaughterhouse-Five,” and “The Kite Runner,” by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. Both are required reading for most upper level high school English classes.
The Moms for Liberty “have misunderstood the meaning of ‘Liberty,’” said Linda White, founder of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis.
White was responding to the removal of Vonnegut’s book in Florida’s Bayside High School.
“Removing someone else’s privilege of reading a book is an act that is worthy of rebellion. But we don’t actually have to rebel because these are our rights as Americans. We just simply have to help the school officials and elected officials to understand that the Constitution is our law of the land. The whims of one group of moms is not the law of our land.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis frequently campaigns at Moms for Liberty events. DeSantis accuses public schools of “indoctrinating” students by not only having them read challenging literature but also for following public health guidelines such as wearing face masks during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, another pet peeve of Moms for Liberty.
Other frequent targets of the group are Pulitzer Prize winners Alice Walker’s, “The Color Purple,” and Toni Morrison’s, “The Bluest Eye.”
Published in 1970, Morrison’s story depicts the trials of a young African-American girl named Pecola in the aftermath of the Great Depression.
The objection?
Pecola becomes pregnant after she is raped by her alcoholic father.
It’s Morrison’s ability to help readers reckon with some harsh realities of society that makes her work so important. That’s not a “bad book,” as opponents have claimed, but a hard book that makes us think.
