Published on October 04, 2022 at 2:50 p.m.
Late last month, thousands of Americans took part in Banned Books Week activities, demonstrations and demonstrations, and this year’s event was one of the most critical in decades due to the onslaught of what has been called controversial reading material in our schools.
This was the 40th celebration of the annual event intended to celebrate the freedom to read. Banned Book Week began in 1982 in response to an increase in the number of book challenges in schools, bookstores and libraries, much like what is happening in our society today.
The celebration aims to “highlight the value of free and open access to information”. As part of this year’s celebration, numerous protests took place across the country to draw attention to a new wave of efforts to ban certain books deemed unsuitable for young people.
The American Libraries Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles lists of contested books as reported in the media and submitted by librarians and teachers.
The latest list includes: “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Perez, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie, “Me and Earl” and the “Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “This Book is Gay” by June Dawson and “Beyond Magenta” by Susan Kuklin.
Most of these books have been banned due to allegations of explicit sexual language, profanity, race, racism, or LGBTQIA content.
This year’s theme was “Books unite us; Censorship divides us. According to the organizers of this effort, “Banned Books Week is a reminder of the unifying power of stories and the divisiveness of censorship and a call to action for readers to push back against censorship attempts in their communities.”
I was really surprised how few events were held in Eastern Pennsylvania to observe Forbidden Book Week. Several teachers in area schools told me they were “afraid” to bring up or talk about the subject for fear of upsetting parents or school board members.
The only large protest I could find in eastern Pennsylvania was in Doylestown, Bucks County, where protesters dressed in jackets of banned books marched through the streets of the county seat community of Bucks.
During Banned Books Week, PEN America, an organization that says its goal is to “protect free expression” at home and abroad, reports that more than 400 books were challenged or banned in 11 school districts. different in Pennsylvania, including the East Stroudsburg area. Monroe County School District, which means the state ranks second in the number of banned books just after Texas. This is a misleading figure, however, as the Central York School District is responsible for 441 of the 459 banned books.
PEN America says the unprecedented number of banned books is occurring “often through a coordinated effort by special interest groups.” In its report on the growing book censorship movement in schools, the organization said what is happening is not a spontaneous expression of concern on the part of parents and other taxpayers, but rather the “ work of a growing number of advocacy organizations that have demanded the censorship of certain books and ideas in school as part of their mission.
According to the group’s director of free speech and education programs, Jonathan Friedman, “students are losing access to the literature that equips them to meet the challenges and complexities of democratic citizenship.” Friedman recently told CNN that parents sometimes ask for a book to be banned without having read it, but act after seeing a post about it on social media.
The PEN America report pointed to 50 groups that have been at the forefront of the book ban movement. Among them is Moms for Liberty, which has a strong footprint in Pennsylvania, where it has chapters in 23 counties, including Monroe. The group is “directly linked” to 20% of book bans enacted in the last school year, according to the report.
By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com
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