I wish I could just sail through Dragoncon reveling in the mass creative energy and joyful nerdery on display in Atlanta this weekend, as 100,000 people celebrate the art and artists that bring joy to their lives.
But that joy isn’t coming to Christian County, Mo. this week. Any book with LGBTQ+ content will be labeled with a warning, as will books with violence and sexual content. Apparently the simple fact of being gay qualifies as equal to pornography or violence in Christian County.
And yes, being labeled qualifies as censorship, as Book Riot details this month. With labeling comes “anyone under 18 can’t access this,” and so on. The argument for book banning in schools has often been, “it’s not banned when you can go get it in the library.” Even more obtuse is “it’s not banned, you can go buy it at a bookstore or Amazon.” Setting aside the number of extremists pushing for booksellers to be prosecuted for selling suspicious books, that also keeps a large swath of literature in the hands of the wealthier American. If you’re poor and want to read Sula, you’re out of luck.
Greenville County S.C. is killing the school book fairs because they can’t figure out how to censor them properly and the public library is moving all books that mention transgender to the adult section. Katy, Texas has banned all books about gender fluidity from school libraries. Fort Bend, Texas has granted the superintendent unilateral authority to ban books. Dubuque, Iowa has banned 50 more books, including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.
Rutherford County, Tenn. has a list of challenges to consider this week, including some of the usual suspects. Their proposed bans are Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Wicked by Gregory Maguire, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, Skin and Bones by Sherry Shahan, and Queen of Shadows and Tower of Dawn by Sara J. Maas. At least they’re determined to actually read the books before they ban them, unlike the ones relying on AI and a list compiled by far-right activists to decide their “local standards.” Also considering bans are Oshkosh Public Schools in Wisconsin and the Arkansas State Library Board.
St. Joseph, Mo. opted not to ban The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and the banners are big mad. El Paso, Colo. students now have to have parents opt in to letting them use the library at all. Moms for Liberty (yeah, they’re still here) is suing Clyde-Savannah Central School district for not banning books they don’t like.
Ketchikan Public Schools in Alaska have banned What Girls Are Made Of, another Alaska library board member literally said “burn it” when opting to remove Identical by Ellen Hopkins from the library, and an Oklahoma teacher lost her teaching license for giving students a QR code to allow them to borrow banned books from the Brooklyn Public Library. And the Baltimore city school board ended its meeting when a so-called “book-banning pastor” from North Carolina showed up to speak.
But the winner this month is the library in Monroe County, Ga., which is moving all LGBTQ books to the adult section, so you have to be 18 or older to read the picture book Heather Has Two Mommies.
What makes them special? They shared this gem from a local op-ed: “On what planet could you say that LGBT books in the kids’ area are ‘neutral,’ or morally equal to Christian books? I mean, if you put LGBT books in the youth section, you’re necessarily, by definition, an anti-Christian library. No serious believer in the Bible would ever allow such.”
Now, they didn’t write it, but they shared it. This, by the way, is a PUBLIC library. Not a school. The op-ed comes from the Monroe County Reporter, and was literally titled “Some books need burning.” I could not get the whole text, since I’d have to sign up for the Monroe County Reporter and I am not in that headspace, thanks. Book Riot’s Literary Activism newsletter handled that so I don’t have to.
Extra credit goes to Virginia state Sen. Chris Head, who is “deeply troubled” by some books in the Botetourt County Library – not school, public. He subscribes to the “it’s not banned if you can buy it online” school, and is deeply troubled by a book about menstruation. Horrors!
Finally, no roundup would be complete without Florida. Many thanks to Book Riot for finding this gem: “A woman complained to Brevard Public Schools that a graphic novel’s depiction of a gay relationship could cause compulsive masturbation in middle schoolers.” The book, by the way, was found not to violate Florida’s statutes but was banned anyway.
And New College of Florida decided to dump every book from the newly-disbanded Gender and Diversity Center into a dumpster. Everything from Jewish folk tales to a history text on same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe went into the trash.
This is only a selection of book-censorship items crossing my inbox this week, and that’s just the stuff I see. Imagine how much more is out there that I missed, or that Book Riot missed, or that didn’t get wider news coverage because the drumbeat is so constant now. I want to run through the halls shouting, “They’re coming for the books!” But I’m not sure anyone would look up.
