Plot twist: Activists skirt book bans with guerrilla giveaways and pop-up libraries; NPR, March 23, 2023

Tovia Smith, NPR ; Plot twist: Activists skirt book bans with guerrilla giveaways and pop-up libraries

"It hasn't gone unnoticed by groups behind the book bans that the more books are pulled from school shelves, the more they pop up elsewhere, like a game of whack-a-mole.

"One hundred percent it concerns me, says Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms For Liberty, a group that has been behind many of the bans. "I think it's so messed up that so many people want to show children all this explicit graphic content," she says.

As an organization, Justice says, her group is singularly focused on controlling the books in schools. But personally, she says, she hopes prosecutors will crack down on what she calls illegal distribution of pornography by activists outside of schools."

The Top 10 Library Stories of 2022; Publishers Weekly, December 9, 2023

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; The Top 10 Library Stories of 2022

PW looks back at the library stories that captivated the publishing world this year, and what they portend for 2023

"1. Attacks on the Freedom to Read Escalate

In 2022, a pernicious wave of politically motivated book bans continued to surge in local library and school districts across the nation, with the overwhelming majority of book challenges involving LGBTQ authors and themes or issues of race and social justice. And as a new year approaches, observers say the attacks on libraries and schools are only intensifying.

The numbers tell a disturbing story. In April, the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom released its annual report on banned and challenged books, announcing that it had tracked some 729 challenges involving 1,597 individual titles in 2021—the highest number of challenges since ALA began compiling its most-challenged-books lists 20 years ago. And during Banned Books Week in September, the ALA reported that the number of challenges through the first eight months of 2022 was on pace to shatter the already-record-breaking numbers from 2021...

2. State Legislators Take Aim at Libraries and Schools

In 2022, threats to the freedom to read escalated at the state level as well as the local level, with a host of new state measures targeting the work of libraries.

In March, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 1467,which mandates a public review of all public school instructional material, including library books, part of suite of laws signed under the guise of parental rights. In Tennessee, legislators passed HB 2666, which, among its provisions, vests the state’s textbook commission (rather than local decision makers) with final authority over whether challenged works can remain in school libraries. In Kentucky, lawmakers passed SB 167, which critics say will politicize library boards by giving local elected judges broad control to appoint members and veto power over large expenditures.

In Missouri, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft proposed a vague new “Protection of Minors” rule for libraries that would prohibit state funds from being used for materials deemed to “appeal to the prurient interests of any minor.” The new rule follows the passage of SB 775, a recently enacted state law that threatens criminal charges for Missouri librarians and teachers found to have provided “explicit sexual material” to students. In November, PEN America reported that fear of prosecution under the new law has already led librarians and educators to pull some 300 titles across 11 school districts.

And in a proposal sure to get publishers’ attention, Texas state representative Tom Oliverson proposed HB 338, a bill that would require publishers to create an “age appropriate” rating system for books sold to Texas school libraries, while also giving state officials the power to direct publishers to change ratings state officials disagree with, and to bar schools from doing business with publishers that do not comply.

3. Congress Holds Hearings on Book Bans, Introduces a Bill to Support School Librarians

The surge in book bans and legislative attacks on the freedom to read didn’t only register at the state and local levels in 2022—it captured the attention of Congress as well.

In April, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held a hearing on the coordinated attacks on the freedom to read in libraries and schools, and in May held a second hearing focused on schools. At the second hearing, held on May 19, chairman Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, forcefully condemned new state laws seeking to ban books and prohibit the discussion of certain allegedly divisive subjects, like critical race theory and the LGBTQ community, calling such efforts “the hallmark of authoritarian regimes.” The laws, Raskin concluded, “are being used to undermine public faith in public schools and destroy one of the key pillars of our democracy.”

Meanwhile, two lawmakers this fall introduced a bicameral bill designed to support school libraries and protect school librarians. Introduced on October 6 by Rhode Island senator Jack Reed and Arizona representative Raúl Grijalva, both Democrats, the Right to Read Act (S 5064 and HR 9056) would authorize $500 million in grants to states to support school libraries in underserved areas. And, crucially, it would also extend “liability protections” to teachers and school librarians, which supporters say is a direct response to the rise in state laws threatening them with civil actions and criminal charges simply for making books available to students.

The bill was welcome news for school librarians, even though with just days left before the end of the 117th Congress it is all but dead on arrival. Advocates say the legislation lays down an important marker for federal action and will be reintroduced in 2023."

Anatomy of a Book Banning; The Washington Post, June 24, 2022

Dave Eggers, The Washington Post; Anatomy of a Book Banning

A South Dakota school district planned to destroy Dave Eggers’s novel. He went to investigate.

[Kip Currier: The 6/24/22 Washington Post article, Anatomy of a Book Banning, is an extraordinarily thought-provoking, illluminating "call-to-action" perspective by noted author Dave Eggers (The Circle, 2013). This article -- a proverbial "canary in the coal mine" on censorship realities and exigencies in present-day American school districts -- is relevant to all information professionals. This first-hand account also sheds light on a variety of stakeholders and communities, with particular pertinence to school libraries, teachers, students, parents, and all societal members concerned about informed citizenries and civil liberties.

Although information professionals are increasingly being asked to do more with less resources, less time, less compensation, less acknowledgement -- experiencing burgeoning compassion fatigue and the trauma of library work -- I would suggest we need to think even more strategically, both short-term and longitudinally, about what we can do to add our voices, ideas, passions, stories, and expertise to these bedrock issues of intellectual freedom, access to information, and the right to self-determination and pursuit of each person's happiness. To that end, more of us may need to consider running for and serving on school boards and other boards that make consequential decisions about many information-related matters that are within the wheelhouses and bailiwicks of librarians, archivists, data/information/computing/museum professionals. Or getting more involved in getting behind candidates and already-serving members of boards who support and lead on the kinds of issues that are integral to us and implicated by stories like this one by Dave Eggers.]

"South Dakota’s Codified Law 22-24-27 prevents the distribution to minors of sexually explicit material that is “without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Given that all five books are literary works that have only a few pages (or just a few paragraphs) of sexual content, the law does not apply in this case. Court rulings, including Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982), have further found that books cannot be removed from school libraries simply because certain individuals think they’re offensive.

Unspoken in much of the debate is that the vast majority of books assigned to high-schoolers also contain material that would probably be deemed objectionable under the same standards. The students of Rapid City are still allowed to read “Oedipus Rex,” in which the protagonist kills his father and then sleeps with his mother. They are still allowed to read “The Great Gatsby,” which contains alcoholism, adultery and murder. “Romeo and Juliet,” which remains on reading lists and on the shelves of all three Rapid City public high school libraries, centers on a torrid love affair between teenagers, both of whom kill themselves."

How a Debut Graphic Memoir Became the Most Banned Book in the Country; The New York Times, May 1, 2022

Alexandra Alter , The New York Times; How a Debut Graphic Memoir Became the Most Banned Book in the Country

Maia Kobabe’s book “Gender Queer,” about coming out as nonbinary, landed the author at the center of a battle over which books belong in schools, and who gets to make that decision.

"Suddenly, Kobabe was at the center of a nationwide battle over which books belong in schools — and who gets to make that decision. The debate, raging in school board meetings and town halls, is dividing communities around the country and pushing libraries to the front lines of a simmering culture war. And in 2021, when book banning efforts soared, “Gender Queer” became the most challenged book in the United States, according to the American Library Association and the free speech organization PEN.

Many of the titles that have been challenged or banned recently are by or about Black and L.G.B.T.Q. people, both groups said.

“‘Gender Queer’ ends up at the center of this because it is a graphic novel, and because it is dealing with sexuality at the time when that’s become taboo,” said Jonathan Friedman, the director of free expression and education at PEN America. “There’s definitely an element of anti L.G.B.T.Q.+ backlash.”"

Ominous rhetoric gains grounds in Russia as its forces founder in Ukraine; The Washington Post, April 13, 2022

Robyn Dixon, The Washington Post; Ominous rhetoric gains grounds in Russia as its forces founder in Ukraine

"In late March, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee launched a probe into whether Ukrainian students’ textbooks “target children with hatred of Russia and the Russian language” and “distort history.” There already is evidence, Finkel noted, of Russian soldiers in Ukraine going through libraries and schools and destroying books in Ukrainian or those about the country’s history and struggle for independence.

“I think there is a clear indication that [the Russians] are targeting quite deliberately everything and everyone that is associated with Ukrainians as a national identity,” he said."

When schools went virtual, online bullying declined; The Washington Post, February 10, 2022

Christopher Shea, The Washington Post; When schools went virtual, online bullying declined

"(According to one 2019 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 20 percent of American high school students reported being bullied in person in the previous year; 16 percent reported being bullied online.) Bacher-Hicks and four colleagues at B.U. — associate professors Joshua Goodman, Jennifer G. Green and Melissa Holt — tackled the question using an unusual approach: They first established, by examining past data, that Google searches for such terms as “bullying” and “cyberbullying” closely track real-world trends, as measured in surveys. They then looked at what happened to search trends during the pandemic. The results, which appeared in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper in December, weren’t what many people expected. This interview has been edited for length and clarity...

Q: If I understand it right, in your interpretation online bullying is largely an outgrowth of in-school bullying.

A: Absolutely. I think that bullying that occurs online may in many cases just be an extension of bullying that started in person. We know from prior research that many of the same individuals — that is, both the victims and the aggressors — are involved in in-person and in cyberbullying. So there are clear links between the two. And I think an important contribution of our paper is to show that when you disrupt one form of bullying, there is a clear reduction in both forms.

Q: Your paper suggests there might be lessons for this and for the post-pandemic world. What might those be? Because kids eventually will be all back in these chaotic physical environments again.

A: The lessons might come out of this question: Why do we think that even when schools reopened in fall 2020 during the pandemic, bullying was lower in those schools than we would have predicted? One reason is that schools put additional structures in place to prevent the spread of covid-19. And many of those structures likely helped to reduce bullying when students were back in person. We know from prior studies that a lot of bullying occurs during unstructured time — that is, time spent passing other students in the hallway, time at lunch, etc. During the pandemic, there has been a lot less flexibility in offering that type of unstructured time. And there is a lot more supervision during the school day. I don’t think that we should necessarily maintain all of these new structures moving forward, but I think it does suggest there’s something that we can learn about how providing additional structured time might reduce bullying."

Opinion: A surprising poll about GOP book bans should light a fire under Democrats; The Washington Post, February 23, 2022

Greg Sargent, The Washington Post; Opinion: A surprising poll about GOP book bans should light a fire under Democrats

"A new CBS News poll offers data that should prod Democrats into rethinking these culture-war battles. It finds that surprisingly large majorities oppose banning books on history or race — and importantly, this is partly because teaching about our racial past makes students more understanding of others’ historical experiences.

The poll finds that 83 percent of Americans say books should never be banned for criticizing U.S. history; 85 percent oppose banning them for airing ideas you disagree with; and 87 percent oppose banning them for discussing race or depicting slavery.

What’s more, 76 percent of Americans say schools should be allowed to teach ideas and historical events that “might make some students uncomfortable.” And 68 percent say such teachings make people more understanding of what others went through, while 58 percent believe racism is still a serious problem today."

How free speech is under attack in the U.S.; CBS News, February 20, 2022

CBS News; How free speech is under attack in the U.S.

""I would argue that the culture of free speech is under attack in the U.S.," said Jacob Mchangama, the author of "Free Speech," a new book that documents the history of free expression. "And without a robust culture of free speech based on tolerance, the laws and constitutional protection will ultimately erode.

"People both on the left and the right are sort of coming at free speech from different angles with different grievances, that point to a general loss of faith in the First Amendment."

The free-speech erosion is even happening in schools. Since January last year, according to PEN America, Republican lawmakers have introduced more than 150 state laws that would restrict how teachers can discuss race, sexual orientation, and gender identity in the classroom.

Jennifer Given, who teaches high-school history in Hollis, New Hampshire, said of the laws, "It's about making up false narratives to further a political goal of your own. 

"It's a really scary time to be a teacher," she told Pogue. "We're self-censoring, We are absolutely avoiding certain things and ideas in an effort to stay within the lines as best we understand them.""

Art Spiegelman sees the new ban of his book ‘Maus’ as a ‘red alert’; The Washington Post, January 28, 2022

 Michael Cavna , The Washington Post; Art Spiegelman sees the new ban of his book ‘Maus’ as a ‘red alert’

"Now, though, given the latest roiling debates over which books can be banned from schools and libraries, the author of the seminal graphic memoir “Maus”appreciates his work’s long cultural tail: “I’m grateful the book has a second life as an anti-fascist tool.”

Spiegelman is speaking shortly after learning that a Tennessee school board voted unanimously this month to ban “Maus,” which in 1992 became the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. The two-volume comic biography chronicles his family’s Holocaust history through a frame-tale of ‘70s conversations between Spiegelman and his estranged father, all told with anthropomorphic imagery: The Jewish characters are rendered as mice, for instance, and the Nazis are cats...

In the current sociopolitical climate, he views the Tennessee vote as no anomaly. “It’s part of a continuum, and just a harbinger of things to come,” Spiegelman says, adding that “the control of people’s thoughts is essential to all of this.”

As such school votes strategically aim to limit “what people can learn, what they can understand and think about,” he says, there is “at least one part of our political spectrum that seems to be very enthusiastic about” banning books.

“This is a red alert. It’s not just: ‘How dare they deny the Holocaust?’ ” he says with a mock gasp. “They’ll deny anything.”.

Spiegelman, 73, knows well the ways and whims of educational decision-makers. He cites how often “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” has been challenged and banned ever since its 1885 publication. And in 1986 — just a few weeks after book one of “Maus” was published — William Faulkner’s 1930 Southern Gothic novel “As I Lay Dying” enjoyed a regional spike in sales when it was banned by a Kentucky school district."

Art Spiegelman's Maus Banned by Tennessee School Board; CBR, January 26, 2022

NOAH DOMINGUEZ, CBR; Art Spiegelman's Maus Banned by Tennessee School Board

"The McMinn County School board in Tennessee has voted to ban cartoonist Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus from its curriculum.

Originally serialized in Raw from 1980 to 1991, Spiegelman's Maus depicts the cartoonist -- who was born in 1948, shortly after the end of World War II -- interviewing his father, a Polish Jew, about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor. The acclaimed postmodernist graphic novel famously depicts Jews as mice and Germans as cats.

According to The Tennessee Holler, the McMinn County School board voted 10-0 to ban Maus from all of its schools, citing the book's inclusion of words like "God damn" and "naked pictures" of women. Apparently, the school board discussed the possibility of simply redacting words and images it found inappropriate, though ultimately opted to ban the book outright. When reached for comment by The Tennessee Holler, the board claimed that the book being about the Holocaust had nothing to do with why it was banned."

Librarians Decry GOP Moves to Ban Books in Schools; PEW Charitable Trusts, January 13, 2022

David Montgomery, PEW Charitable Trusts; Librarians Decry GOP Moves to Ban Books in Schools

"Outraged at the parents and politicians who are trying to rid school libraries of books they denounce as inappropriate or even pornographic, a band of Texas school librarians is fighting back. 

Shortly after Texas state Rep. Matt Krause called for the state’s school libraries to review a list of 850 books for possible removal, four librarians formed “#FReadom Fighters” to resist what they call “a war on books.”

“We became this little freedom-fighting team,” said Carolyn Foote, a former school librarian in an Austin suburb who is now a library consultant. “We just wanted the voices of librarians and students and authors to be heard.”"

Schools See Steep Drop in Librarians, New Analysis Finds; Education Week, May 16, 2018

Sarah D. Sparks and Alex Harwin, Education Week; Schools See Steep Drop in Librarians, New Analysis Finds

"“When we’ve talked to districts that have chosen to put resources elsewhere, we really do see more than one who have then come back and wanted to reinstate [the librarian],” said Steven Yates, the president of the American Association of School Librarians. “Not only do you lose the person curating the resources for informational and pleasure reading, but you lose the person who can work with the students on the ethical side—how do you cite? How do you determine a credible source of information?”"

The singular danger of Trump; Washington Post, 8/26/16

Dana Milbank, Washington Post; The singular danger of Trump:

"Next week, I’ll be talking about Trump, and how we speak to children about Trump, to teachers at my daughter’s school. The school is understandably wary about appearing to take sides in a political contest. But I’ll say such reluctance should be set aside, because Trump stands opposed to the civic values we teach children...

So how do we talk to children about Trump? We tell them what Holocaust survivors have told me: that what Trump is doing reminds them of 1930s Germany, and that grownups are not going to let that happen here."

Students' Broken Moral Compasses; Atlantic, 7/25/16

Paul Barnwell, Atlantic; Students' Broken Moral Compasses:

"At a recent convening of 15 teacher-leaders from around the country at the Center for Teaching Quality in Carrboro, North Carolina, I spoke to some colleagues about the balance between teaching academic content and striving to develop students’ moral identities. Leticia Skae-Jackson, an English teacher in Nashville, Tennessee, and Nick Tutolo, a math teacher in Pittsburgh, both commented that many teachers are overwhelmed by the pressure and time demands in covering academic standards. Focusing on character and ethics, they said, is seen as an additional demand.

Nonetheless, Tutolo engages his math students at the beginning of the school year by focusing on questions of what it means to be a conscientious person and citizen while also considering how his class could address community needs. His seventh-grade class focused on the issue of food deserts in Pittsburgh and began a campaign to build hydroponic window farms. While learning about ratios and scaling—skills outlined in the Common Core math standards—students began working to design and distribute the contraptions to residents in need, a project that will continue this fall as Tutolo “loops” up to teach eighth grade."

"Huckleberry Finn" and the N-word debate; CBS 60 Minutes, 3/18/11

CBS 60 Minutes; "Huckleberry Finn" and the N-word debate:

""Are you censoring Twain?" correspondent Byron Pitts asked Randall Williams, co-owner and editor of NewSouth Books, publishers of the sanitized edition of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn that replaces the N-word with the word "slave."...

It's aimed at schools that already ban the book, though no one knows how many have. Williams says they are not trying replace Twain's original, N-word included.

"If you can have the discussion and you're comfortable havin' the discussion, have it. Have it with it in there. But if you're not comfortable with that, then here's an alternative for you to use. And I would argue to you that it's still powerful," Williams said.""