banned books research topics

Researching Banned or Challenged Books: Resources for Challenge Research

• Resources for Challenge Research
• Was Winnie the Pooh Banned?

Key Resource

The key resource for researching why a particular title was challenged or banned are the publications of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom.  The Office maintains information on which books are challenged and why and regularly publishes this information in the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy , where there may also be discussion of the events surrounding a challenge, and in a compilation published about every three years, most recently in Banned Books: Defending our Freedom to Read , edited by Robert P. Doyle. (Before 2016, similar information was in the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom.)

Doyle and others used histories of censorship to compile the initial listing of challenged or banned books; this bibliography is in the Guide , as well as included on a list of books on censorship maintained by the ALA Library.

More recent entries are derived from the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy or Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom.

This publication is available in many libraries around the country, or may be ordered from the ALA Store..

• Books on Censorship Bibliography supporting research on censorship, banned and challenged books, and intellectual freedom. For researching why a particular book has been challenged, we recommend the Banned Books Resource Guide, which is represented on this list by the most recent editions, as well as the entry for the serial comprised of all the editions.
• Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy The official journal of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF). JIFP is a double-blind peer reviewed publication, topically focused on practical, moral, ethical, philosophical, and theoretical issues of intellectual freedom and informational privacy within the United States and globally. Published quarterly. more... less... Two most current issues are available by subscription only. Older issues are made available via open access at the link above. ISSN 2474-7459
• Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom Superceded by the Journal Of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy. The Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom was the only journal that reported attempts to remove materials from school and library shelves across the country. The NIF was the source for the latest information on intellectual freedom issues.

Additional ALA Resources

The Banned Books Week pages on the ALA website offer many ways to look at the challenge data that has been collection.  The links provided here will be of use to students doing research.

• Challenged Classics (with reasons) The classics in the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th century, with challenge reports from the 2010 edition of "Banned Books."
• Frequently Challenged Books Most current top ten, with links to statistical analyses and subsets.
• Mapping Censorship This map is drawn from cases documented by ALA and the Kids' Right to Read Project, a collaboration of the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. Details are available in ALA's "Books Banned and Challenged 2007-2008; 2008-2009; 2009-2010; 2010-2011; 2011-2012; and 2012-2013," and the "Kids' Right to Read Project Report." “Mapping Censorship” was created by Chris Peterson of the National Coalition Against Censorship and Alita Edelman of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.
• Read Banned Books YouTube Channel Videos of Virtual Read-Outs and other videos from ALA OIF.
• Timeline: 30 Years of Librerating :Literature Since 1982, Banned Books Week has rallied librarians, booksellers, authors, publishers, teachers, and readers of all types to celebrate and defend the freedom to read. To commemorate 30 years of Banned Books Week and enter our 31st year of protecting readers' rights, ALA prepared l this timeline of significant banned and challenged books. Timeline powered by Tiki-Toki.

Where else to look....

If your library does not have "Banned Books," use the library catalog to locate books on censorship.  Useful subject headings are "Challenged books--United States" or "Censorship--United States."

Many libraries offer databases enabling access to periodicals and newspapers. Ask your librarian about accessing these--or visit your library's website, library card in hand, to access.

Use newspaper indexes such as the following to read coverage of book challenges in the communities where they occurred.

• LexisNexis - Full-text access to magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times.
• NewsBank - Full-text articles from major metropolitan newspapers.
• ProQuest Historical Newspapers™ - Digital archive offering full-text and full-image articles for significant newspapers dating back to the eighteenth century.

Use literature databases such as the following to seek out biographies of authors, book synopses, bibliographies, and critical analysis.

• Booklist Online - Reviews, awards information, some author information in editorial content
• Gale Literature Resource Center - Has full-text articles and book reviews, biographical essays.
• Library and Information Science Source - Full-text and indexed entries from library science literature, including major review sources
• NovelList - Includes reviews and reading recommendations, reading levels, summaries, and awards books have received.

Often, a general web search of < "[book title]" and (banned or challenged) > will yield up useful articles and blog posts about challenges.  For example, < "looking for alaska" (banned or challenged) > will bring up newspaper coverage--as well as a video by the author--on the censorship challenges faced by Looking for Alaska , by John Green.

Other websites

• Banned Books that Shaped America The Library of Congress created an exhibit, "Books that Shaped America," that explores books that "have had a profound effect on American life." Below is a list of books from that exhibit that have been banned/challenged.
• Banned Books Week The Banned Books Week Coalition is a national alliance of diverse organizations joined by a commitment to increase awareness of the annual celebration of the freedom to read. The Coalition seeks to engage various communities and inspire participation in Banned Books Week through education, advocacy, and the creation of programming about the problem of book censorship.
• Books Challenged or Banned in 2014-2015 A bibliography representing books challenged, restricted, removed, or banned in 2014 and 2015 as reported in the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom from May 2014 to March 2015 and in American Libraries Direct (AL Direct), by Robert P. Doyle.
• National Coalition Against Censorship Resources for School Teachers and Students Background on the legal and practical questions surrounding school censorship controversies.
• NCTE Intellectual Freedom Center Censorship Challenge Reports Teachers, librarians, school administrators, and parents call upon NCTE for advice and materials regarding censorship challenges in their schools or districts.
• University of Pennsylvania Library "Banned Books Online" A special exhibit of books that have been the objects of censorship or censorship attempts, linking to free e-books.
• Wikipedia's "List of books banned by governments" Tabular listing, alphabetical by title, of books banned by governments, worldwide.
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• Last Updated: Mar 14, 2024 10:24 AM
• URL: https://libguides.ala.org/Researchingchallengedbooks

Morris Library

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Banned Books: Protect Your Freedom to Read

• Protect Your Freedom to Read
• The Banned Book Collection in Morris

Banned Books Week is celebrated annually, with sponsorship from the American Library Association (ALA), the National Association of College Stores, and many other organizations. According to the ALA, "Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States."

A Worrisome Trend

ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago. The unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022 nearly doubles the 729 book challenges reported in 2021. Censors targeted a record 2,571 unique titles in 2022 , a 38% increase from the 1,858 unique titles targeted for censorship in 2021. Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community or by and about Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.

• Censorship by the Numbers Resources documenting the number and locations of censorship attempts against libraries and materials compiled by ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom.
• Book Ban Data, ALA Latest numbers from ALA about book bans and challenges in the United States, including preliminary data from the first half of 2023. TL;DR: They're up. A lot.
• Banned and Challenged Books ALA's page devoted to censorship attempts and the annual Banned Books Week celebration.
• Book Bans, PEN America Resources and commentary related to book bans in the U.S., including a comprehensive list of successful school bans, assembled by a national writer's association.
• Ralph E. McCoy Collection of the Freedom of the Press Housed in the Special Collections Research Center on the first floor of Morris Library, the McCoy Collection offers the opportunity to explore issues of censorship and freedom of expression from a historical perspective. It is one of the world's best collections of rare books highlighting the history of First Amendment freedoms. It includes examples of many books that have been banned in the United States and Europe over the centuries. Many of the books listed below part of this collection. more... less... used in Overview of African American history collections in SCRC on Resources for the Study of African American History in Southern Illinois: Overview of Special Collections
• Beacon for Freedom of Expression The Beacon for Freedom project maintains an extensive database of censored publications and publications about censorship.

Banned Books Club and Books Unbanned

The Banned Books Club is a collaboration between libraries and sponsors to make banned books available online and at libraries for free. The University of Chicago and the Digital Public Library of America are offering free access to all Illinois residents through the Palace app.

• Banned Book Club Program to provide free access to electronic copies of banned books. Follow the steps to "Access Banned Books" to get your free card and start reading.
• Banned Books Club at the Palace Project Jump straight to the app the Banned Book Club uses to provide access to available titles.

A number of public libraries nationwide have joined the Books Unbanned initiative, offering free access to commonly challenged or banned titles in eBook form to readers age 13-26. If you fall in that age bracket, sign up for a free temporary library card and read banned books!

• Boston Public Library Books Unbanned Program
• Brooklyn Public Library Books Unbanned Program
• Seattle Public Library Books Unbanned Program

Top Ten Challenged Books from the Last Five Years

Banned in 2021 - 2022

According to PEN America, 1,636 different books were banned—not only challenged, but actually removed from shelves—in classrooms, schools, or libraries in the U.S. for at least a portion of the time between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022. The following is a list of these banned titles available through Morris Library.

• Next: The Banned Book Collection in Morris >>
• Last Updated: Feb 22, 2024 11:55 AM
• URL: https://libguides.lib.siu.edu/bannedbooks

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Banned Books, Censored Topics: Teaching About the Battle Over What Students Should Learn

Suggestions for using recent Times and Learning Network articles, videos, podcasts, student forums and more.

By Katherine Schulten

Parents, activists, school board officials and lawmakers are challenging books at a pace not seen in decades. At the same time, schools are mired in debates over what students should learn about in U.S. history. In the last two years, dozens of state legislatures introduced bills that would limit what teachers can say about race, gender, sexuality and inequality.

All of this is part of a larger debate over politics in public school education. Across the United States, parents have demanded more oversight over curriculums, and school board meetings have erupted into fiery discussions.

How much do your students know and understand about these battles? To what extent have they affected your community, school and students? Why do they matter?

Below, we have collected articles, podcasts, videos and essays, from both The Times and other sources, that can help students think about these issues, and consider what they can do in response. We have also linked to our own related lesson plans, as well as to our Student Opinion forums , where your students are invited to join young people around the world to discuss their opinions.

And though we are publishing this collection during Banned Books Week , these issues are relevant far beyond one week in September. With the approach of midterm elections, for example, challenges to books and the conflicts that surround them are only likely to escalate. And, of course, all of these battles raise deeper questions about education, democracy and citizenship. We hope your students will find something in this collection that will engage them.

What’s happening right now and why?

True or False?

Attempts to ban books in the United States surged in 2021 to the highest level since the American Library Association began tracking book challenges 20 years ago.

The top 10 most-targeted books last year were all classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

Polls show a majority of Americans support banning books.

Police reports have been filed this year against library staff over the books on their shelves.

A Florida law limits teaching on race and racism, including prohibiting instruction that would compel students to feel responsibility, guilt or anguish for what other members of their race did in the past.

(Answers: True ; False ; False ; True ; True )

How would your students do on that quiz? Invite them to brainstorm what they know — or think they know — about book bans and curriculum challenges around the country. As they work, ask them to be as specific as possible: Which books and topics have come under scrutiny? Why? They can also compile a list of the questions they have about these bans and challenges.

Depending on the time you have to devote, here are several ways to provide an overview:

Watch the video embedded above, from PBS News Hour.

Read this New York Times that summarizes the issue from September 2022: “ Attempts to Ban Books Are Accelerating and Becoming More Divisive .”

Use some of the statistics, charts, summaries and more in this comprehensive report from Pen America, “ Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools .”

Or, to understand the implications of these battles through the story of one small town, read or listen to an article from The Times Magazine, “ How Book Bans Turned a Texas Town Upside Down .”

Finally, if your students are ready, they can join young people around the world to post their thoughts in our Student Opinion forum that asks, What Is Your Reaction to the Growing Fight Over What Young People Can Read? You can also have them read and react to a selection of student comments responding to that prompt . (Or, they can view the answers students gave in 2019 to our question, Have You Ever Read a Book You Weren’t Supposed to Read? or to our 2017 question, Are There Books That Should Be Banned From Your School Library? )

Where do your students stand?

A December 2021 lesson plan, written in response to the Times article “ In Texas, a Battle Over What Can Be Taught, and What Books Can Be Read ,” includes an exercise in which students are given a series of statements adapted from the article and asked to decide to what extent they agree or disagree with them. Here are some of them:

Public schools are where a society transmits values and beliefs, so it makes sense that in this fraught and deeply divided time these kinds of arguments are happening.

Books or topics that make students feel discomfort, guilt or anguish because of race, gender or sexuality should not be taught in school.

Understanding our country’s history — including failures to live up to the promises of democracy — is an important part of education.

Teachers should explore contentious subjects in a manner free from political bias.

Lawmakers, politicians and parents should be able to tell teachers which books, articles, videos and other materials they are allowed to use in their classrooms.

It is the responsibility of schools to prepare students emotionally and intellectually with a diversity of voices, including some that challenge dominant historical and literary narratives.

Depending on your students’ background knowledge, the sensitivity of these issues in your community, and other considerations, you might do a similar exercise, either with these statements or with others.

You might distribute the statements to students and have them determine individually to what extent they “strongly agree,” “agree,” “disagree,” “strongly disagree” or are neutral or unsure. If you want them to turn these answers in to you, you might allow students to be anonymous. Or, if your class is ready to discuss these topics as a group, you can use the statements as a “ Four Corners ” exercise; as a “ Big Paper ” silent conversation in writing; or as prompts for partner, small group or whole-class discussions.

We are suggesting this exercise here as a kind of “warm-up” to deeper conversations, but it could also be used after your students have delved into any of the topics below.

What should we read in English class?

Listen to ‘The Argument’: What Should High Schoolers Read?

Kaitlyn greenidge and esau mccaulley on why america’s schools can’t get on the same page about required reading lists..

It’s “The Argument.” I’m Jane Coaston.

What should high schoolers read? It seems like a simple question, but it’s not. Book bans are at a historic high. Recently, the free-speech group, PEN America, has recorded more than 1,500 examples of books being banned to remove from schools. This isn’t new, exactly. There have been debates over “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or “To Kill a Mockingbird.” But now, contemporary books like “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe, and “The Hate U Give,” by Angie Thomas, are under scrutiny too.

What students can access at school matters. To me, English class is one of the few spaces we have left where students are forced to wrestle with big ideas, especially with people who disagree with them. So today, I want to get into what we’re really talking about when we debate high school reading. What ideas and experiences are we saying are OK, or not, to teach in the classroom? My guests today are Kaitlyn Greenidge and Esau McCaulley. Kaitlyn is a contributing opinion writer and the author of two novels, including “Libertie.” She’s helped design English curriculum for schools and taught writing for nearly 15 years. Esau is also a contributing opinion writer and a professor at Wheaton College. He’s the author of “Reading While Black: African-American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope.”

Hi Kaitlyn. Hi, Esau.

Thank you so much for joining me to talk about school. It’s funny, you know, when I graduated from high school, I was like, great, never have to talk about school again, never have to wake up at 6:30 in the morning again. Here we are.

So I thought it would be helpful to start out the conversation with a throwback question just to get us grounded. Kaitlyn, what was high school English class like for you?

Oh, that’s a great question. So I went to a really tiny high school in Boston where there’s only, like, 30 people in each class — in each grade, I should say. So it was sort of like college-seminar style. We all sat around a really big, grand table and what we read was very traditional, kind of like the great 19th-century novels.

Every term we read at least one Shakespeare play. And when you started in the school, every single person had to read the “Odyssey” over the summer. And then, the first semester you were there you were just talking about the “Odyssey.” So that was what high school English was like.

Wow. Esau, what was high school English class like for you?

I went to a school that was a lot bigger. It had about a thousand students in it. It was inner city, which is often code for Black. It was like a Black high school in Huntsville, Alabama. And so I went into Advanced English, mostly because I wanted to have some space to discuss things. And in some ways, it was similar.

I had two English teachers. One was a Black English teacher. And then, later, I had a white English teacher. And the Black English teacher really focused on our ability to read well, to write well and to argue well. And the same thing with the white teacher, but the Black teacher made it almost like a point of racial pride that you will read and write well for the people.

And so I remember English as a place where I fell in love with reading and ideas. And we read some of the traditional stuff as well. And we read Shakespeare, but I think we also squeezed in some Black novels here and there.

So I went to an all-girls private school in Cincinnati, Ohio. It’s a Catholic school, which in Cincinnati, which is very Catholic city, is very common. I went to Ursuline Academy. Go Lions. And I remember being — it’s an all-girls school, so every other girl in my class loved “Pride and Prejudice.” And I loved “Catch-22.” And I was like, we are not the same.

But I actually never had a Black teacher while I was in high school. It was a majority white high school. I grew up having access to all of my parents’ books. My dad is a retired librarian. So I just read all the time, and my dad brought home books all the time.

But we’re going to be talking about what kinds of books we think should be taught in the classroom. And I think my perspective is very, like, teach them all, teach everything. But I want to give some context to where we’re each coming from. So let’s start with this. What do you think is the goal of high school English class? Kaitlyn, do you want to start?

Sure. I mean, I think the goal of high school English is, number one, learning how to read a text, learning how to distinguish in a text between different figures of speech. You know, I taught writing to this age group, to high school students, off and on for about 15 years. I was like a creative writing instructor in various modes in Boston and New York. And I also used to write curriculum for a for-profit company for a number of years.

And through my work as a novelist, I often get asked to go to a lot of classrooms and interact with a lot of high school students around texts. And so I think, particularly in this moment, the most important thing is sort of, number one, learning how to read a text and understanding different modes of communication. So what’s the difference between hyperbole versus what is being used in metaphorical language versus literal language? All those things that —

What is satire?

What is satire.

Which seems to be something we fail at all the time.

Right, right, what is satire. All these modes of address that are used interchangeably throughout our culture constantly, throughout different forms constantly, that many people sort of maybe have heard the word of and think they understand, but most of us are using either incorrectly or misunderstanding. And I think that’s a really important skill that I see people who have PhDs who don’t seem to be able to do that.

So, to me, it’s a really important issue because I think it decides so much of our public discourse. When you lose those abilities, when you lose that tendency, all else is lost. You can’t really have conversations. And you especially can’t have conversations across class lines, across race lines, across gender lines, if you don’t have those skills.

I mean, that’s one of the amazing things about American culture is all of our subcultures that have these particular languages and ways of speaking. And if you don’t have the ability to even just appreciate that that’s a fact, you are going to have a really hard time moving forward in this country.

Right. Can you give me an example of when you’ve seen, as you mentioned, people with PhDs, failing to close read?

Well, in that instance, I think it’s probably, for me, I think the thing that pops into my mind right now is the continual denigration of a word like woke, which Black people keep saying, like, this is the history of where this word came from. This is why we came up with this word. This is why we came up with this language around this word to describe a very particular experience of living in America that we have tracked since we’ve been here, that’s been a part of our literary tradition since we’ve been here.

And we also know, knowing that tradition, that it is also a tradition for white dominant cultures to come in and to corrupt our language and to turn it into something else. And that’s what’s happening here.

But that word is very seductive for a very large portion of white America to just sort of throw everywhere.

And so I think the arguments or the conversation you could have around what do you actually mean when you’re saying that word would be — I don’t think they’d be easier, but they would be — we could maybe have a little bit more traction if people had the ability to understand and talk about figurative language, the uses of language, how people have used language both as resistance and as self-determination.

And I think if you can talk about texts, and if teachers can have the ability and freedom to talk about texts in those sorts of ways, students can be prepared when they enter into the larger world to enter into these discussions in actually intelligent ways.

Esau, what do you think is the goal of high school English?

I think that she did a great job of capturing the discussion of the skills necessary and how those things are going to help you in life. But I want to speak a little bit about what I think texts do and how a text changed my life. When I think of reading a work, it’s like I’m entering into the narrative world of the writer. And normally, the writer has something to say about life, what it means to be human, about love, about joy, about sorrow.

And I think that great fiction writers and great fiction are driven by this question about making sense of the world. And so I think a good English class — this may be overly simplistic — it’s to get our students to lift their head above the question of how can I make the most money or acquire the most things, to ask the deeper questions of meaning.

And as a teacher — and I taught high school and I teach in college now — the hardest thing to do is to get the student to think. And so great literature and great English class just makes the students engage. It overcomes that cynicism. Cynicism, I think, is a manifestation of insecurity because you’re afraid to care. And if you care and you fail, then you hurt.

And so I think that the goal of good English is to get the students to think. Every time I read a book or I read an article, I’m opening myself up to someone who thinks differently than me, who can better inform how I live and move and breathe.

I think that’s really important. And I just want to add, the reason why great literature is great literature is because it’s often about people who hold vast contradictions in themselves, in which there are no easy answers, in which there is no real clear resolution, in which whenever you come back to that text, you find new questions to ask yourself. You know, there’s that famous James Baldwin quote, art is supposed to be asking you sort of continual questions.

And so I think probably for many people who have bad experiences in English classes, it’s because your teacher, or your curriculum, or your school is ignoring all those things. And it’s sort of treating literature as a moral high ground or treating literature as a place where you can’t have those questions, or you can’t dissent, or you can’t say I hate this book because it does X. I think those are probably the places where most people, when you ask them what book did you hate reading in high school, and everybody is sort of like, I hated “Catcher in the Rye” because I was the only person who understood Holden wasn’t an a-hole or whatever. Which you’re like —

Holden Caulfield was a giant jerk.

And I feel as if —

— we don’t talk about that enough.

But that’s the whole point of the book, right? The whole point of the book is, he’s a 13-year-old, or however he’s supposed to be year-old, a-hole who’s grown up rich and privileged. The author knows that.

They know that when they put that on the page. And so I think it’s a detriment to how that book is taught that so many people feel like that’s somehow a new revelation that nobody has talked about before, when, hopefully, a teacher teaches that book as like, this guy is an a-hole. We’re going to read about him. He’s going to piss you off. And we’re going to talk about how the author made that happen on the page and what are the things that are making you mad about this character. And then, hopefully, the next level is, you’re all the same age as this character, so what are the things that this character is doing that’s similar to what you are doing right now —

— that you may not particularly be happy or proud about in your own life. That, to me, is the entry point into a novel or getting a teenager into talking about a book. So then you can talk about those bigger things like metaphor, like imagery, like what is Salinger doing here on this page when he’s doing — like, that’s the entry conversation that you have into that book, to be able to have that higher-level conversation about how a book actually is built and operates.

Right. And I think that that gets to the conversation that we’re having about English class as a place to learn critical thinking skills, even about yourself, to think critically about yourself and the role that you play in the world, versus English class as a place to think about the big questions, which I kind of think it’s both.

And I remember my own experience with English class. And I think one of the most useful parts was being exposed to some of the classics because I felt as if I was connected to everyone else had ever read those books. Especially when we have so many different experiences of living in the same country, these books give us something to share and a common language to have.

And I think that that gets actually at why these conversations about what kids read in school are as contentious as they are. But I also think that the debates that we have about what we read in English class are actually debates about what kinds of communal values we hold as a country. What do you think, Kaitlyn?

I think that’s true. I think when you’re talking about what we should read in English class, you’re really talking about how to make a common language for people to talk across. And if we are such a diverse nation racially, economically, culturally, regionally, there has to be some sort of touchstone for people to be able to have common ways to talk about the human experience and to talk about themselves.

And a very good curriculum would do that, would have books sort of across the spectrum and books by people across time and across different cultures. Because I think what often tends to happen, too, is when we say we want books with big universal themes, a lot of times people interpret that to mean books in which Black people and people of color are not present because we are not universal. Our experiences are somehow not universal, right?

So, like, Jane Austen is universal. Toni Cade Bambara is not, right? That’s kind of the distinction that people make. And I think that when we say we want sort of like a big universal curriculum, we have to be really specific about what that means. And for me, the universality comes from taking texts from all of these different cultures and comparing texts across cultures to find a common denominator. I understand why we had to read the “Odyssey” in ninth grade. I’m grateful for it. I think it was very helpful. I also think it would have been really helpful to read alongside it epics from Mali and from precolonial India and other places to be able to understand the epic tradition. I think that would have been a more interesting class.

The Western canon was created before Black people got a vote. And after it was established, as society has progressed, we’ve tried to sneak in the occasional Black author. And now Zora Neale Hurston is often included there. Toni Morrison is often included there. But it’s a corrective. It’s almost like there’s not enough space because so much of the space was taken up before they really considered other voices.

And so I do I believe that we need to reconsider who and what makes up a common language, which seems to be impossible right now in a country that seems to be ripping itself apart around identity issues.

But I also want to say that there’s something to be said about the limits of something like a universal canon. So I think that it might be important, if I’m in the South, where I grew up, I might have two or three extra books about what it means to be in that region of the country, and literature that is distinctly Southern.

So I think there might needs to be a universal — like a shared canon with some kind of regional emphases. And I would also suggest that it is not so much that we all have read the same books, but if we could kind use our regional literature as a way of asking these questions, and then we’re bringing out people who have more empathy. Like, everybody can read the same books and come out equally racist or sexist, right?

Right. I’m always struck by how we talk about the canon. And I’m so glad that you brought that up. I am attracted to the idea that there is a set of texts that is so universally important and also so universally applicable that everyone should read them, even just to understand what we’re all talking about.

I talk all the time about how I think that reading religious texts as literature — Esau, you’ll get this — that there are times in which I make what I believe to be bog-standard biblical references, and people just have no idea what I’m talking about. And I’m just like, you know, like, the Prodigal Son.

Yeah, like, anyway, he left. It’s fine. But I’m curious, Esau, how do you define the canon, such as it exists?

Oh, man, I’m going to have to leave that statement that you tossed out about reading biblical text to the side because there’s probably no other thing plaguing America more than our poor reading of our religious texts, which is an issue for another day.

I would define that canon as those books that, by their very merit, stick with us. And we have to ask the question, why do we keep reading Tolstoy? And I think we keep reading Tolstoy because he’s amazing. And so part of it is something about quality. But there’s also times where books, they so much capture a moment in time and in history that you can’t talk about that portion of American life or world history without them.

So I think that the canon is those books.

And I don’t so much begrudge the — I call it the pre-integration canon, like the white canon that was constructed and given to students with little regard to Black people, except for the fact that we did not reconsider that, as a community, when we came of age. In other words, it was a settled group of texts to which you could then add a few Black voices here and there and then a few Latino voices here and there. But I think that we really need to step back and say, OK, now that we recognize that this was rooted in a hierarchy in which white culture is at the top and Black culture is at the bottom, what is our new understanding of what is valuable, and what are some of those books that we thought that we had to read that could actually be captured just as well by authors from other cultures?

I would also just add to that, books are not created in a vacuum. They’re written in the historical tensions of the times that they were written. So I think, even if you were to say we’re going to just stick with the Western canon that was created pre-integration or whatever, you can teach those books by talking about what is in them and what has been left out.

So you can teach “Persuasion” and point out that, when it was being written, there’s a whole question in the larger British empire of what’s going to happen around slavery and emancipation and the intense wealth that came from slavery for many of these characters. And that’s the subtext of all these questions about who’s getting married or whatever. They’re really talking about who’s transferring blood money from place to place.

What if we talked about “Persuasion” in that sort of way, and how everybody who is a part of that culture knows that that’s where the money is coming from? And how does that affect people’s sort of like interior lives, or doesn’t it affect their interior lives? I would make the argument that that’s perhaps where a lot of the emotional construction comes from in those cultures, is knowing that you can’t actually name sort of the great terror that is propping up your whole life.

That’s me as a novelist going off and way, way psychoanalyzing. But there’s a way where you could make that argument around those texts. And I keep thinking about there was the terrible shooting at the supermarket in Buffalo. And the shooter was talking about the Great Replacement theory. And at first, the sort of thing was like, this is such a fringe theory, fringe theory. And you know, you have to point out, they talk about the great replacement theory in “The Great Gatsby.” That is a important subplot of “The Great Gatsby,” that Daisy’s husband is a white supremacist, is afraid that white people are dying off.

So like, why aren’t we talking about that in those texts? That doesn’t have to be the sole discussion you have about “The Great Gatsby.” But that’s a really important point to talk about, that that was sort of like the milieu that this book was written in, and that fear of losing white power is a huge theme in the book. That’s what “The Great Gatsby” is about.

So I think we can talk about these books in a much more nuanced way. And unfortunately, I think a big part of it that we’re not saying is that now teachers have very, very good reason to fear even pointing those things out.

Right. And I think that that context is so important. I know that, in my entire life, there’s been this debate about taking out “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from readings. And part of it is because, I think, of that lack of context in which Finn decides that he is not going to return Jim, the runaway slave, to his owners.

And he believes, in the context in which he is living, that the line is, all right, then, I’ll go to hell. This idea that if I have to decide between following societal norms and returning a runaway slave, who was believed, in his context, to be property, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again. And as long as I was in, I would go whole hog.

And I think about that a lot and about how it seems to be very difficult to talk about the context in which these books are written. It’s difficult to talk about how “The Great Gatsby” is written at a time of both immense white success but immense white fear about what immigration means. Because in many ways, they’re not necessarily even talking about Black people.

No, they’re just talking about other slightly less white white people.

They’re talking about, like, Italians. Like, the passing of the great race is —

Spicy whites, yes, spicy whites.

The passing of the great race is like, we might have too many Czechoslovakians.

So what I’m hearing, Kaitlyn, is that this is not necessarily about the books. This is about the teaching.

Yeah, I think — you brought up “Huckleberry Finn.” That’s a fantastic example because that is a question of teaching. And the flip side of this great question of what Finn is doing is, I think, every single Black person who you talk to, who has gone to a school with mostly white teachers or with all white students, has a story about being forced to say the n-word by a teacher in reading that text out loud.

Yes, exactly.

So we have to talk about that part of it, of text used in domination by white teachers over students of color and Black students, in a very particular way. Which I think is the other side of this that people feel really strongly about the canon because of those white supremacist teaching techniques that are built into our education system and that many white teachers, both vindictively and thinking that they’re doing the right thing, force students into these interactions.

This is the thing that I think that people get wrong in this conversation if they think they can settle the proper formation of our students by the books that they choose to put in the canon. But I do want to say that a lot of this comes down to the formation of our teachers and the ways in which they teach students to engage text. And that’s something that you can’t do by the canon. You can’t have a book that a teacher can’t ruin.

So I guess one of the experiences that I remember being most traumatizing is, this book is so good that we need to just ignore the racism —

Uh-huh, yes.

— and look at it as literature. And it’s such great literature, let’s just ignore this kind of — no, no, no.

“Heart of Darkness,” yeah.

Like, it’s so good, ignore the racism. I was like, well, no, that is the thing that is making me feel uncomfortable in class. And had you sat down with me in that class and said, OK, we’ll have a session or two where we talk about this problematic aspect and then we can talk about their use of metaphor. OK, fine, right?

But I think that one of the things that is underneath that is this fear that if we acknowledge the racism that is in our literature and we make that a point of emphasis, then that reality runs through all of American history and culture.

In other words, you can’t tell the story of any aspect of American greatness without saying the place or that it’s tainted by racism. And when you speak about that tainting by racism, people feel like the greatness is all gone. And so they say, let’s just downplay the racist part and look at the glory. And I just can’t help but see the racism.

And so I think that’s what makes the discussions around the canon complicated. Because the teacher has to be able to see these texts as both powerful and profoundly broken because they’re written by humans who often have those contradictions in themselves.

Yeah, and I think another detriment to how teachers are supported is that, oftentimes, there is no space even to have that conversation and to point out that people have been noticing this about this book for generations. You’re not the first reader to notice this. So, you know, how helpful would it be if you were to read “Heart of Darkness,” say, and your teacher had the time and space to also put Chinua Achebe’s essay critiquing it beside you?

So I think one of the reasons why that doesn’t happen is, number one, teachers don’t have any space and time and money for it. And number two, subconsciously, to know that you are not the first person pointing this out, to know, in fact, that there’s a whole tradition of writers of color and Black writers who, for centuries, have pointed to places in the canon and said, actually, no, this is what is wrong. Actually, no, this seems to be here. Actually, no, I’m going to fill this space with something else.

That’s very, very, very profound and cuts sort of like at the heart of white supremacist culture. And so it’s much easier, in many ways, to say to a student, yeah, you’re the only one who noticed that “Heart of Darkness” is racist, instead of saying, you’re part of a long lineage of people who noticed this and who did work to try and point it out.

I think it’s worth acknowledging, and we know this, that the canon is always evolving, whether we like it or not. And some works become more meaningful over time, and some lose resonance. I remember when I was in sixth grade, we read “Our American Cousin,” which is the play that Abraham Lincoln was seeing when he was assassinated. Friends, it has —

it has not stood the test of time, because most things don’t. Our canon changes. Sometimes the book is going to last the test of time. Sometimes it’s going to be “Avatar.” So what do you see as the goal of revising the canon? Should it be to mirror what’s taking place or mirror what should be taking place? How do you think about this?

I think, in order to reform the canon, we have to get underneath this American fear as to relate to both the power and the limitations of books. So for example, I read “Crime and Punishment,” and I didn’t become Orthodox.

I read Malcolm X and I didn’t join the Nation of Islam. A book can be powerful, and it can change you, and you don’t have to adopt everything in the book. So I think that we overestimate the power of literature as it relates to an ideology. So I think that the first thing we have to do is get underneath this American fear of control and producing certain kinds of citizens that we think are going to help us be who we’re going to be, and just open ourselves up to great literature from wherever it arises.

When we begin to think about the canon, I think the first question is underrepresentation. Who have we historically underrepresented? And who from that community can lift those works up and say we missed it?

Yeah, I just want to say, you said so eloquently, Esau, this question of control, which is such a ribbon through American culture that just really corrupts so much, this desire to control. And so I think, again, thinking of the canon as a gateway and as a tool, and less as sort of like a prescriptive or as a way to judge who knows and who doesn’t know what’s in the canon, or a way to judge have you been taught correctly or are you an imbecile.

If we think of the canon as simply like a tool to help us, I think that opens up a lot, sort of thing. But ultimately making any sort of canon is propaganda. That’s just, like, the name of the game.

So I think this question of opening up, yeah, control, and understanding that students are going to come to the text in any sort of way that they come to it, and that’s part of what reading is. If someone’s takeaway is different than yours, that doesn’t mean that the text has failed or that the canon is corrupting people or the canon isn’t good anymore. It just means that you are two humans reading a book, and you came to different conclusions.

Esau, you brought this up, about how people seem to think that if you read a book, you will immediately be inculcated by what the book is telling you, which just like — if that’s how school worked, school would be very different.

And I would also argue — and I hate this term — but I do think, in some ways, historically, what we want kids to read in schools is often a form of signaling to other people, a form of virtue signaling even. And I actually see, in some ways, that the recent wave of attempted book bans, I think that there are some where people are like, oh, this book is too complicated for this age group, or something like that.

But at a same point, these gestures are kind of symbolic. Kids can find these books elsewhere or find them on the internet. So these bans actually say more about what ideas adults are afraid of their children getting exposed to, whether it’s the existence of racism or whether it is discussions of L.G.B.T. issues —

I just push back on it, them being symbolic. They actually affect the bottom line of what children’s and middle-grade literature will be published in the coming years because children in middle-grade literature marketplace is mostly libraries and schools. So when they are banned in a civic place like that, that means that those places won’t order those things, and book publishers will lose that very huge part of revenue. So it actually is not symbolic. It actually affects book acquisition and which books will be published about what subjects, three, four, five years down the line.

That’s a good point. But, Esau, you brought up that it’s hard to tell whether kids think about these books this way at all. So I’m curious about how should we think about the kinds of moral conversations that books are or aren’t able to offer us?

I have a teenager and now a soon-to-be teenager in my house. They’re my children. And so I used to have this idea of, like, that — I don’t know why you lie to yourself once you get older. Because once you have children, you begin to think that you have more influence over them than you do.

And so what I realized with my children, even my son, who’s the oldest, I can present opportunities for him to think about the world via stories that I tell, books that we engage, but ultimately, he has to make the decision for himself, the kind of person that he is going to be. And I’m his parent.

And I think that, in a similar way, and probably even a lesser way, teachers have that same responsibility. They can’t control what students become. They can present them options. And if there was a simple answer to what people are going to become, we would all become that thing.

And so what literature is are these different explorations into what it means to figure out how to be a human. And I think that a good teacher doesn’t say, I’ve solved the problem. It’s like, these were books that were formative to me as I began to make sense of myself. And I think that once we recognize how open the human person is, then we might begin to be a little bit less fearful.

And I’m sorry, this might be a strange analogy, but the Black experience is paradigmatic of that. They tried to convince us for hundreds of years. They limited our reading. They did everything to convince Black people that God wanted us to be enslaved and God wanted us to be submissive. And Black people said, nah, I’m good with that. We refused the propaganda.

And I think the human spirit refuses to believe something that it doesn’t know to be true. And so once we recognize that, we recognize the limits of any form of education and literature. And so then we begin to see education as a guided journey of discovery, where we present to students things that we or the world has found helpful in that process.

I would just say that one of the things that happens, especially around book banning, around, I would say, queer and L.G.B.T.Q. books, is the idea that you’re the only person who’s felt a certain way, or had certain feelings, or looked at the world in a certain way is very seductive for some people. But the negative side of that is the intense isolation that comes from it.

So I think, as much as it is about morals, it’s also about really trying to not let queer children know that their experience is a part of the human experience. Like, that’s what it’s about, right? It’s hoping to say, you can’t go to a book to know that, five years ago or 10 years ago or right now, someone is having these same feelings. You’re just going to suffer alone. And you’re going to stew in that shame and ignorance and sadness about yourself into adulthood. And maybe you’ll be able to figure it out then, but we’re not going to try and give you the tools to talk about any of the complications of that feeling now.

And that’s a real political project, right?

And that’s where, I think, this is where it’s an all-hands-on-deck type of situation. Public education in this country is why this country has done anything good. Let’s just be really clear. That’s the only reason, in this broken nation, why anything good has happened is because we’ve had public education for the last 160 years, or since Reconstruction, essentially.

So I think this is an all-hands-on-deck situation where, if you care about these things, you want to figure out how you can support the public school teachers in your community to make that happen. A teacher needs to feel that their community is going to stand behind them against these sort of outsized astroturfed assaults on what they’re doing.

This has been an incredibly insightful conversation. Kaitlyn, Esau, thank you so much for coming on the show. [MUSIC]

I love talking with you, Esau. I love talking with you, Jane. Thank you.

Thank you for having us.

Kaitlyn Greenidge is a contributing Opinion writer and the features director at “Harper’s Bazaar.” Her latest novel is “Libertie.” Esau McCaulley is a contributing Opinion writer, an associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, and a theologian-in-residence at Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago.

This episode is part of a series Times Opinion is doing right now, called “What is School For?” You can find a link to the other stories from parents, teachers and students, and more, in our episode notes.

“The Argument” is a production of New York Times Opinion. It’s produced by Kristin Lin, Phoebe Lett and Vishakha Darbha. Edited by Alison Bruzek and Anabel Bacon, with original music by Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker; mixing by Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta, with editorial support from Kristina Samulewski.

What is the purpose of English class? Why do we read and talk about books together? What books should we read? Why?

In this podcast, for which you can also find a transcript , the host Jane Coaston interviews Kaitlyn Greenidge and Esau McCaulley, writers who have also been high school teachers. Their conversation is wide-ranging and full of possibilities for class discussion.

For instance, here is a snippet of a section on the questions of what to teach and why:

Kaitlyn Greenidge I think when you’re talking about what we should read in English class, you’re really talking about how to make a common language for people to talk across. And if we are such a diverse nation racially, economically, culturally, regionally, there has to be some sort of touchstone for people to be able to have common ways to talk about the human experience and to talk about themselves. And a very good curriculum would do that, would have books sort of across the spectrum and books by people across time and across different cultures. Because I think what often tends to happen, too, is when we say we want books with big universal themes, a lot of times people interpret that to mean books in which Black people and people of color are not present because we are not universal. Our experiences are somehow not universal, right?

What do your students think? What do they read in your class, and who or what determines that mix? What would they say should be the purpose of English class?

What ideas from this episode resonate with them — and with you?

What is the purpose of teaching U.S. history?

In the section above, we used a Times podcast to focus on the question of what English class is for. Now we turn to a Times video interactive that poses similar questions about U.S. history classes.

In the last year, 17 states have imposed laws or rules to limit how race and discrimination can be taught in public school classrooms. Some of the discussion has been fueled by the 1619 Project , developed by The New York Times Magazine, which argues that “the country’s very origin” traces to when the first ship carrying enslaved people touched Virginia’s shore that year. “Out of slavery — and the anti-Black racism it required — grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional,” it explains.

In response to bans on teaching with the 1619 Project in states like Florida and Texas, the editor in chief of the Times Magazine, Jake Silverstein, wrote an essay called “ The 1619 Project and the Long Battle Over U.S. History .” Here he describes how these bans seem to see history as somehow fixed and immutable:

In privileging “actual fact” over “narrative,” the governor [Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida], and many others, seem to proceed from the premise that history is a fixed thing; that somehow, long ago, the nation’s historians identified the relevant set of facts about our past, and it is the job of subsequent generations to simply protect and disseminate them. This conception denies history its own history — the dynamic, contested and frankly pretty thrilling process by which an understanding of the past is formed and reformed. The study of this is known as historiography, and a knowledge of American historiography, in particular the way our historical profession evolved to take fuller account of the role of slavery and racism in our past, is critical to understanding the debates of the past two years.

Many of these laws have also taken aim at what has been labeled critical race theory — an academic legal framework for understanding racism in the United States developed during the 1980s — while others are crafted more broadly to address what Republicans call “divisive concepts.”

What should students learn about our country’s history? What, if anything, shouldn’t they learn? In our recent lesson plan we quote a teacher from the video interactive and pose these questions for students:

“It’s the job of a history teacher to tell the full and complex story of U.S. history.” What does that mean to you? Do you think you have learned the “full and complex story” of U.S. history? If not, what do you think has been missing?

Here are three recent Learning Network lesson plans that can help you go further:

Lesson: The Debate Over the Teaching of U.S. History

Lesson: ‘Critical Race Theory: A Brief History’

Lesson: ‘Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories.’

And here are two Student Opinion forums to which your students are invited to contribute their thoughts — or read the responses of other young people:

What Is the Purpose of Teaching U.S. History?

What Is Your Reaction to Efforts to Limit Teaching on Race in Schools?

Were your students’ minds ever “disturbed by a book”?

Before your students read Viet Thanh Nguyen’s essay, “ My Young Mind Was Disturbed by a Book. It Changed My Life. ” you might ask them to write or talk about questions like these:

What book have you read, in or out of school, recently or when you were younger, that elicited a strong emotional reaction in you?

You might have felt joy, sorrow, anger or hope. You might have recognized yourself and your world in this book — or it might have introduced you to new ideas and worlds. How did it affect you?

To follow up, you might ask them: Can a book be dangerous? Can a book harm a reader? How? If books can be harmful, is it appropriate for schools to protect students from them, either by taking them out of the curriculum or off library shelves? What examples can you offer?

In the essay, Mr. Nguyen writes about how, as a Vietnamese American teenager, he came across Larry Heinemann’s 1977 novel, “Close Quarters,” about the war in Vietnam, and “was not prepared for the racism, the brutality or the sexual assault.” He writes about how the book affected him, and how, years later, he wrote his own novel, “The Sympathizer,” about that war.

He continues:

Books can indeed be dangerous. Until “Close Quarters,” I believed stories had the power to save me. That novel taught me that stories also had the power to destroy me. I was driven to become a writer because of the complex power of stories. They are not inert tools of pedagogy. They are mind-changing, world-changing. But those who seek to ban books are wrong no matter how dangerous books can be. Books are inseparable from ideas, and this is really what is at stake: the struggle over what a child, a reader and a society are allowed to think, to know and to question. A book can open doors and show the possibility of new experiences, even new identities and futures.

As this essay points out, the questions around banning books “aren’t just political; they’re also deeply personal and intimate.” How have they affected your students? What stories can they tell about the role of a book, or some other form of culture, in their lives? Where do they stand on the idea that “those who seek to ban books are wrong no matter how dangerous books can be”?

What rights do your students have to speak up about these issues?

An A.C.L.U. “toolkit” for students called “ Right to Learn: Your Guide to Combatting Classroom Censorship ” states: “All young people have a First Amendment right to learn free from censorship or discrimination,” including a “right to read, learn and share ideas free from viewpoint-based censorship.” And, indeed, a famous 1969 Supreme Court decision declared that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

But in 1988, the Supreme Court placed a limit on the types of speech protected by the First Amendment in a school setting. As this site summarizes , “The case, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, began with student journalists looking to push the envelope with articles they believed their classmates would relate to. And it ended with the Supreme Court creating a new rule on student speech.” Though courts since then have made it clear that school officials do not have an unlimited license to censor, the Hazelwood decision was, according to the Poynter Institute, “ a giant step back for student press and speech rights. ”

Recently, for instance, a Nebraska school shut down its student newspaper rather than allow it to focus on L.G.B.T.Q. issues. The Times article puts that news into context:

The shuttering of the paper was the latest instance of students contending with school officials seeking to prevent the distribution of yearbooks or the publication of articles , particularly in cases dealing with L.G.B.T.Q. issues. In May, school officials in Longwood, Fla., ordered stickers to be placed over a photo spread in the Lyman High School yearbook showing students protesting a new state law that prohibits classroom instruction and discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in some elementary school grades. Last August, school officials in Arkansas removed a two-page year-in-review spread from one high school’s yearbook that mentioned the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and the 2020 election. “It’s something we’re definitely seeing more of,” Mr. Hiestand said.

But, as the article points out, at least 16 states have “New Voices” laws intended to safeguard school publications from interference and counteract the Hazelwood decision. To learn more, visit the Student Press Law Center’s section about these laws .

After the 2018 Parkland shootings, planned student walkouts to protest gun violence again raised questions of students’ First Amendment rights. This A.C.L.U. guide addresses the question, “Do I have First Amendment rights in school?” in that context, pointing out that students have the rights to speak out, hand out fliers and wear expressive clothing “as long as you don’t disrupt the functioning of the school or violate the school’s content-neutral policies.”

Invite your students to investigate what laws and guidelines determine student speech and expression in their school. Do they feel they can comfortably speak their minds in their classes, no matter what their political viewpoints? Why or why not? Has their school ever faced a situation in which students were prevented by school administrators from saying, doing or writing something? Do your students think the move was necessary to protect students — or did it cross the line into stifling free speech?

What is published in their school newspaper and yearbook? How much freedom do students journalists who work on those publications have? Is your school in a state that has adopted a “New Voices” law? If so, what are the implications for student publications?

You might also ask them to think about broader questions like, Why would a school want to control student speech? When, if at all, do they think that is appropriate? For instance, are there any topics that should be off limits in school newspapers? Should these publications be allowed to criticize the school administration, investigate teachers or write about sensitive subjects like teenage sexuality and school shootings? Why or why not?

To help with some of these questions, we have a 2018 lesson plan that links to many resources:

Lesson: The Power to Change the World: A Teaching Unit on Student Activism in History and Today

We also have several related Student Opinion forums to which students might contribute — or read what other students have to say:

Should Schools Be Allowed to Censor Student Newspapers?

What Do You Wish Lawmakers Knew About How Anti-L.G.B.T.Q. Legislation Affects Teenagers?

How Comfortably Can You Speak Your Mind at School?

What can young people do?

In 2021, Edha Gupta and Christina Ellis, two high school seniors in York County, Pa., were furious when they read in a local paper that their teachers had been effectively banned from using hundreds of books, documentary films and articles in their classrooms. This article describes what they did in response. In August 2022, the two gave a TEDx talk called “ How a Book Ban Helped Us Find Our Voice .”

Looking for another first-person account from a teenager? This article from School Library Journal, “ Uniting Against Censorship: A First-Person Account from Banned Books Week Youth Honorary Chair .”

If your students are interested in raising their voices on any of the issues they’ve investigated thus far, they can learn from students like these, or find out more from the following resources:

American Library Association: Unite Against Book Bans

We Need Diverse Books: How to Support Diverse Books During a Book Ban

A.C.L.U.: Right to Learn: Your Guide to Combatting Classroom Censorship

Pen America: The organization is keeping a regularly-updated Google Doc called “ The PEN America Index of Educational Gag Orders. ”

Find more lesson plans and teaching ideas here.

Katherine Schulten has been a Learning Network editor since 2006. Before that, she spent 19 years in New York City public schools as an English teacher, school-newspaper adviser and literacy coach. More about Katherine Schulten

Banned Books: Freedom to Read

• Read Banned Books
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Most Challenged Books of 2022

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• Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022 (American Library Association) This page lists the 13 most challenged books of 2023 and what each book was challenged for. ALA documented 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since ALA began compiling data about censorship in libraries more than 20 years ago.
• Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books: 2010-2019 (American Library Association) List of the most banned and challenged books from 2010-2019 compiled by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

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Banned Books 2023: Let Freedom Read: Home

Celebrate Banned Books Week - October 1-7, 2023

Why Banned Books Week?

• Statement from the American Library Association
• Definitions

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Highlighting the value of free and open access to information, Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community –- librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types –- in shared support of the freedom to seek, to publish, to read, and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship. The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted for removal or restrictions in libraries and schools. While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read.  –-  Banned Books Week Q&A

Book Challenge vs. Book Ban

An attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. 

Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. 

A book banning is the actual removal of those materials . 

A change in the access status of material, based on the content of the work and made by a governing authority or its representatives. Such changes include exclusion, restriction, removal, or age/grade level changes.

Intellectual Freedom

The right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored.

Read Banned Books @ St. Kate's Library

My Sister's Keeper

The Qur'an [al-Quran al-hakim]

The Hunger Games

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

In the Night Kitchen

Intellectual Freedom Issues in School Libraries

Intellectual Freedom Manual

Intellectual Freedom Stories from a Shifting Landscape

It's Perfectly Normal

The Kite Runner

Looking for Alaska

Maus I: a Survivor's Tale

Me and Earl and the dying girl

Melissa (formerly Published As GEORGE)

The Holy Bible : Revised Standard Version, Catholic edition

Nasreen's Secret School

Of Mice and Men

Out of Darkness

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Skippyjon Jones

Slaughterhouse-Five

Something Happened in Our Town

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

This book is gay

To Kill a Mockingbird

A Universal History of the Destruction of Books

Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets

The 1619 Project

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Collector's Edition

All American Boys

All Boys Aren't Blue

Almost Perfect

And Tango Makes Three

The Annotated Huckleberry Finn

Banned books: defending our freedom to read

Beyond Banned Books

Beyond Magenta

The Bluest Eye

Book Banning in 21St-Century America

Books under Fire

Brave New World

100 Banned Books

A Court of Mist and Fury

The Color Purple

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Dear Martin

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo

Dreaming in Cuban

Felix Ever After

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Gender Queer: a Memoir

The Glass Castle

His Dark Materials: the Golden Compass (Book 1)

The Handmaid's Tale

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The Hate U Give

A History of ALA Policy on Intellectual Freedom

A year in review.

• More Than 4,000 Unique Titles Challenged: ALA Releases 2023 Censorship Data From Unite Against Book Bans, March 14, 2024
• Spineless Shelves: Two Years of Book Banning PEN America - December 2023
• I Made the Most Banned Book in America The Nib - September 1, 2023
• State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools PEN America - April 20, 2023
• American Library Association releases preliminary data on 2022 book bans ALANews & Press Center - Sept. 16, 2022
• Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools PEN America
• Book banning in U.S. schools has reached an all-time high: What this means, and how we got here GRID - Aug. 27, 2022

Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022

Book Bans in the News

• Red states threaten librarians with prison — as blue states work to protect them Washington Post, 4/16/24
• Florida law led school district to pull 1,600 books — including dictionaries Washington Post, 1/14/24
• The Post reviewed 1,000 school book challenges. Here’s what we found. Washington Post, 12/23/23
• Publishing industry heavy-hitters sue Iowa over state's new school book-banning law Washington Post, 11/30/23
• 'To Be Destroyed': Documentary examines Rapid City's attempted book ban Rapid City Journal, 10/26/23
• North Carolina Retracts Ban on Banned Books Week The Guardian - September 30, 2023
• Senate Hearing Discusses Book Bans The Hill - September 12, 2023
• Public Libraries are the Latest Front in Culture War Battle Over Books Washington Post - July 25, 2023
• Florida Readers Push Back Against Book Bans WUSF Public Media - June 10, 2023

Guide Feedback

• Guide feedback We welcome your feedback! Use this form to suggest changes/additions to this guide.

Censorship and Book Challenges by the Numbers

• Who Challenges
• For What Reason(s)
• Mapping Censorship

From the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom

• During the first half of the 2022-23 school year PEN America’s  Index of School Book Bans  lists 1,477 instances of individual books banned, affecting 874 unique titles ,  an increase of 28 percent compared to the prior six months, January – June 2022. That is more instances of book banning than recorded in either the first or second half of the 2021-22 school year.  Over this six-month timeline, the total instances of book bans affected over 800 titles;  this equates to over 100 titles removed from student access each month.
• Overwhelmingly, book banners continue to target stories by and about people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.  In this six-month period, 30% of the unique titles banned are books about race, racism, or feature characters of color. Meanwhile, 26% of unique titles banned have LGBTQ+ characters or themes
• The full impact of the book ban movement is greater than can be counted, as “wholesale bans” are restricting access to untold numbers of books in classrooms and school libraries.  This school year, numerous states enacted “wholesale bans” in which entire classrooms and school libraries have been suspended, closed, or emptied of books, either permanently or temporarily. This is largely because teachers and librarians in several states have been directed to catalog entire collections for public scrutiny within short timeframes, under threat of punishment from new, vague laws. These “wholesale bans,” have involved the culling of books that were previously available to students, in ways that are impossible to track or quantify.

The most common themes in book challenges include:

• Books that have to do with LGBTQ topics or characters.
• Books that have to do with sex, abortion, teen pregnancy or puberty.
• Books that have to do with race and racism, or that center on protagonists of color.
• Books that have to do with history, specifically that of Black people.
• EveryLibrary Institute Dr. Tasslyn Magnusson is an independent researcher focused on the networks, organizations, and individual actors who are leading book banning and book challenge efforts in our nation's school libraries and public libraries. Dr. Magnusson's spreadsheet of book bans and challenges has been available online since October 2021 to aid library organizations, library staff, education stakeholders, and concerned parents. Her findings have helped numerous school libraries and public libraries.
• Youth Censorship Database The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) database of K-12 student censorship incidents includes book challenges in schools and libraries, as well as censorship of student art, journalism, and other types of student expression in schools. The map can be filtered based on Reason, State, and other options, along with additional information and links to incident reports.

Freedom to Read Statement

Seventy years ago, leaders from across the literary world joined together in writing to condemn attacks on free expression. The statement at the heart of that endeavor, the Freedom to Read Statement ,was authored by the American Library Association and Association of American Publishers over a period of several days. It begins with this timeless observation:

The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack.     

Read the full Freedom to Read Statement.

From Unite Against Book Bans, 2023

The Fiery History of Banned Books Week

Advocacy and Activism around Banned Books

Whether by providing legal support, educational resources for parents, teachers, and librarians, or opportunities to organize on the grassroots level, there are many organizations which fight against efforts to ban books in school libraries and beyond, and many more which fight censorship more broadly.

Learn more about some of these organizations, and/or get involved, below:

• How to Fight Book Bans: A Tip Sheet for Students From PEN America
• American Library Association, Fight Censorship
• National Coalition Against Censorship & Unite Against Book Bans
• Freedom to Read Foundation
• Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF)
• PEN America, Book Bans
• Book Ban Busters

Book Ban News in Minnesota

• ‘Ban on book bans’ introduced in Minnesota Legislature MPR, 3/21/24
• St. Cloud Library System Tackles Record Number of Requests to Ban, Move Books Minneapolis Star Tribune - November 25, 2023
• Book Ban Attempts on the Rise in Minnesota Schools MPR News - October 12, 2023
• Carver Library Board Declines to Remove 'Gender Queer' From Shelves MPR News - September 12, 2023
• Community Members Challenge Books at Forestview Library Brainerd Dispatch - June 15, 2023
• Gov. Tim Walz Opens 'Little Library' to Fight Book Bans Now This News - March 23, 2023
• Minnesota and the Unbanned Book List Star Tribune - February 14, 2023
• Last Updated: Apr 19, 2024 10:03 AM
• URL: https://libguides.stkate.edu/BBW2023

©2024 St. Catherine University Library , St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

The Topics That Lead Book Ban Requests, According to School Leaders

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Over the past year, some parents and activists have attempted to ban books about race, gender, and sexuality from classrooms and school libraries, sparking national headlines and controversies .

A new, nationally representative survey of educators sheds some light on how common these book censorship requests are—and which subjects are most frequently challenged. The EdWeek Research Center surveyed 1,200 teachers, principals, and district leaders in the second half of December.

Over the past three years, almost two-thirds of school and district leaders have not fielded any requests to ban or remove books, the survey found. But 16 percent of school and district leaders say the number of requests to ban books has increased since 2019, while just 2 percent say they have decreased. (Nineteen percent said there’s been no change.)

Books with LGBTQ characters or issues topped the list of reported challenges, with nearly half of school and district leaders who reported book ban requests saying they’ve had somebody ask to remove or ban books of that nature. Other frequently challenged subjects include sex and sexuality that is not violent or abusive, critical race theory, ethnicity/race, racial inequities, gender, and non-traditional family structures.

Suburban administrators are more likely to say book censorship requests have been on the rise than their peers in rural or urban districts. Additionally, more than 1 in 3 administrators in districts with 10,000 or more students report that the number of book ban requests has increased over the last three years. Only 8 percent of administrators in districts with less than 2,500 students reported the same.

The EdWeek Research Center survey results are in line with the American Library Association’s annual list of the top 10 most challenged books in K-12 schools, colleges, and libraries.

In 2020, the most recent year for which the ALA has data, the novel Melissa by Alex Gino—previously published as George— was the most frequently challenged for its depiction of a young transgender girl. The list was otherwise dominated by books about racism, including: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You , a middle-grades adaptation of Ibram X. Kendi’s book about the history of racist ideas in America; All American Boys , a young adult novel that follows the perspectives of both a Black and a white teen after a racist incident of police violence; and Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice , a children’s book about the aftermath of a police shooting of a Black man.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said in a November statement that there has been an “unprecedented volume of challenges” to books in fall 2021. Those challenges are largely against materials that focus on LGBTQ issues and books by Black authors or that document the experience of people of color , according to the ALA.

“In my 20 years with ALA, I can’t recall a time when we had multiple challenges coming in on a daily basis,” Caldwell-Stone said.

Critical race theory is cited in many of the complaints, experts say, even if the content in the book has little to do with the academic framework, which posits that racism isn’t just the product of individual bias but is embedded in legal systems and government policies. Over the past year, 13 states have restricted teaching about critical race theory or how teachers can discuss race and gender in class.

Even though most districts haven’t seen overt challenges, the national climate “could create a chilling effect where teachers stick to what they’ve always taught because they perceive it’ll be an easier pathway, there will be less resistance, and that’s such a loss to society, to students, and to teachers,” Emily Kirkpatrick, the executive director for the National Council of Teachers of English, told EdWeek in September .

Yet the EdWeek Research Center survey results show that 57 percent of teachers and 63 percent of principals, along with slightly less than half of district leaders, can come up with a topic they think should be banned from books in their districts’ libraries and classrooms.

Sexual violence or abuse is the topic teachers, principals, and district leaders are most likely to say should be banned, followed by white power/nationalism and critical race theory. Seventeen percent of educators say that books featuring LGBTQ characters or issues should not be allowed in schools.

Education experts say that children should have access to diverse books that serve as “ windows and mirrors "—they should expose readers to new worlds and perspectives while also reflecting readers’ own experiences.

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Banned and Challenged Books

Banned and challenged, what is banned books week.

• Frequently Challenged Books
• Why Are Books Challenged?
• Take Action

Banned Books Week 2023

October 1 - 7, 2023

Welcome to the Banned and Challenged Books Research Guide!

In a time where difficult conversations are happening, it is especially important to reflect on why books are being challenged. These books have themes and subject matter that touch on these very difficult conversations.

Explore this guide to find out more information on why books are challenged, what books have been challenged, and what you can be doing to help!

" Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to read and spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. For 40 years, the annual event has brought together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular. The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted for removal or restriction in libraries and schools. By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship."

Source: American Library Association [ALA] Banned Books Week (October 1 - 7, 2023)

Challenged : An attempt to remove or restrict access to a book, based on objections due to personal beliefs or values.

Banned : The actual removal of a book, based on objections due to personal beliefs or values.

Relocated : A book being hidden or moved to a less-noticed area as an attempt to challenge or ban the book.

• Next: Frequently Challenged Books >>
• Last Updated: Mar 1, 2024 11:45 AM
• URL: https://libguides.regiscollege.edu/bannedbooks

Banned Books: Home

Welcome to the Polk State College library guide for banned books research topics.  Below you will find suggested books/ebooks and recommended databases. If you need help, click the link for Ask a Librarian.

eBooks/Books

Recommended Databases

Login Required

You must log in to use library databases and eBooks. When prompted to log in, enter your Passport credentials. If you have trouble, try resetting your Passport pin, sending an email to [email protected], or calling the Help Desk at 863.292.3652. You can also get help from Ask a Librarian.  

Ask a Librarian

• Next: Citations >>
• Last Updated: Feb 13, 2024 4:03 PM
• URL: https://libguides.polk.edu/bannedbooks

Polk State College is committed to equal access/equal opportunity in its programs, activities, and employment. For additional information, visit polk.edu/compliance .

Let your curiosity lead the way:

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• Arts & Sciences
• Graduate Studies in A&S

Banned Books Undergraduate Research Fellowship

Book banning — the practice of removing certain titles from library shelves, reading lists and K–12 curricula — is one of the most pressing issues in U.S. education news today. Florida, Texas and Missouri far outpace other states in legislation and organizing around banning particular titles deemed inappropriate for various reading audiences, and according to Pen America , book banning is on the rise, nationwide. The question of what to ban, and why, is part of a larger conversation about the role of various writing in public life across temporalities, languages and national borders. That conversation speaks to both the power of books to inspire and enact change, as well as to the vulnerability of their authors and readers to various censoring and repressive powers. 

The Center for the Humanities’ Banned Books Undergraduate Research Fellowship invites interested undergraduate students into this conversation. The first cohort was selected in January 2024.

Students engage in a research project on a topic of their choosing, one that might trace the history of a single particular banned book, or embark on a project at wider scale about the historical and cultural contexts of book banning. We are also interested in projects that look carefully into current book bans (particularly in our surrounding community), as well as book banning in international and historical contexts. While students produce writing around their research topic, the final product of their work is the presentation of their research, rather than a paper. 

In exchange for their research and collaborative efforts in planning an on-campus, end-of-year event on the topic, each student in the Banned Book research cohort receives a $500 stipend. Students are expected to attend a series of monthly meetings and confer with humanities center staff on their project work throughout the semester. 

Questions may be directed to Meredith Kelling , assistant director of student research and engagement, Center for the Humanities.

Banned Comic Books

A September 2022 panel discussion considered banned comic books from the perspectives of the artists who create them and the advocates who defend them. Co-organized by WashU Center for the Humanities, St. Louis Public Library and Left Bank Books.

Why do comics get banned?

Banned book fellows.

The Center for the Humanities welcomed its first cohort of Banned Books Fellows in the spring 2024 semester.

Wyatt Byers

Wyatt Byers is a first-year student planning to major in English and the pre-law track. He is following up with high-school newspaper reporters in public districts in St. Louis County to see how they have covered these issues in their own schools.

Delaney Dardet

Delaney Dardet is a fourth-year major in communication design, with minors in psychology and educational studies. For her project, she is returning to her home county in Florida to interview booksellers and librarians about how they’ve adapted during this surge of book bans and found ways to advocate for educational freedom.

Ava Giere is a first-year student planning to major in political science and English. She is looking into the money flowing into school board elections via various advocacy groups and the ensuing impacts on book ban policies.

Raelani Hartnett

Raelani Hartnett is a fourth-year psychology major, with minors in American culture studies and film and media studies). She is analyzing the impacts of limiting books on topics of queer sexuality and assessing how students in districts with limited sex education might use literature to learn about essential health topics. 

Betty Lee a first-year undeclared major. She is interested in the racial politics of book banning and is investigating the landscape of book bans in prisons.

David Win is a second-year student majoring in sociology and English. He is conducting some mapping analysis to compare districts in Missouri with known book bans against some socioeconomic/identity factors. 

How to Fight Book Bans in 2024: Book Censorship News, April 26, 2024

Kelly Jensen

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She's the editor/author of (DON'T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen .

View All posts by Kelly Jensen

No, you won’t find “read the books” here. That’s a nice thing to do. It doesn’t end book bans unless you’re on the review committee deciding the fate of that book . You won’t find “create a banned book library” or “buy books for the kids” on this list. Again, fine and good things to do, but 1. they’re engaging in capitalism and not anti-censorship work, 2. they only help some kids who likely already have the means to be helped, and 3. too often, those focus back too much on the good people behind them and not the reality of who is hurt with book bans.

If you read this very basic list of what to do and feel frustrated, that’s worth sitting with. This is not a short-term project. Again, the first “how to” guide here was published in fall 2021. It’s now spring 2024. Change only happens when you take action to make change and change is extremely slow. Realistically, the folks behind book bans and the groups and actions being taken to rip away access to books, libraries, and public education, more broadly, have been a work in progress from the far-right and religious extremists for decades now.

Really. That’s all.

Eighteen percent of my county’s electorate bothered in the spring elections. That means fewer than 1 out of 5 people in my county decided who was in charge of several important local offices. We were fortunate not to have school boards on the ballot, but this sort of voter turnout is pathetic, especially being in a state where access to voting is about as broad as possible (we might be beat only by states that mail ballots to all residents). Recognize that this means if only 1 in every 5 people make the decisions for an entire community, it is incredibly easy for bad actors to get power they don’t deserve.

Most people don’t vote in non-presidential elections. The people who do vote are likely not paying significant attention to down-ballot candidates, like those running for school or library boards.

I recently listened to a podcast episode where the guest said something that resonated: not only should you vote, but send an email to a handful of your friends who are local to you and tell them who you are voting for. You don’t even need to tell them why but you can.

Imagine: you go vote, then you send an email to 10 people the day before or day of and say “here’s who I picked for the boards.” Guess what? You’ve done a LOT of work for your friends who may not be aware of how important those elections are nor where to begin researching them. But those people trust you .

Show Up To Board Meetings

It doesn’t matter if you go in person or send an email to the board. It doesn’t matter if there are “problems” in your school or library district. Show up. Write a letter once a month or once every other month praising the work being done by educators and librarians in your institutions. This doesn’t need to be genius. You can say you loved the Pride display or that you appreciate that the librarian at school always recommends good books for your students. That the educator’s classroom library has helped bring diverse literature into the hands of your students. This takes under 10 minutes.

Make it a habit to read school and library board minutes and agendas. Put it on your calendar to do. It takes 10 minutes. When you see something that is even remotely concerning, show up.

If talking publicly is scary, write a letter.

If you’re without a clue on where to begin writing a letter or composing a speech to give in person, how about a template? This template is an easy to use tool and gives you no excuse not to be paying attention or engaging with the democratic process in your own community.

Note: the above template is not my creation but the creation of a local-level activist in Wisconsin who provides it open source—it does not get more simple than this.

Bring your friends with you to these meetings and/or coordinate a monthly time when you all get together for coffee or a beer and catch up with the local politics and send your emails to the boards.

If you have the time and capacity, consider running for these board positions . You cannot run only on the platform of being pro-literacy and anti-book ban. Those are crucial. But libraries and schools are more than either of those things. Think of the role as helping to run a non-profit that has as one of its purposes ensuring access to information equitable to all.

Get In Your Elected Officials’ Ears

You need to pay attention not only to local level politics but what’s happening at the state and federal level. Get on the mailing lists of all your representatives and make it a habit to contact them about issues related to libraries and schools. When you schedule in those 10 minutes to read board minutes, add another 10 minutes to search your state legislative session bills and see where/how you should be responding.

It’s very likely you have Facebook groups or other social media pages that present this information easily for you. For example, in Illinois, we have the Witness Slip Project , which will present the bills that need witness slips filed (this is public comment via a form) and the manner in which they should be filed, either as a proponent or opponent.

Every Library has done a tremendous job tracking library bills across the country, both those of concern and those that are positive . You see something relevant to your state or something happening at the national level, get your phone calling or email hands working.

Not sure what to say? You can use the same exact template from the school board/library board here. These don’t need to be long phone calls or long emails. Get your name and voice on the record.

Then send an email to your friends and colleagues and urge them to do the same.

Stay On Top of the News

You’ll likely only see the big censorship stories or the ones that’ll draw some heavy clicks to news outlets. Pay attention to those, of course, but also keep your eye on local news, both that published in the paper and that circulating on social media. Be conscious of mis-, dis-, and mal- information from any of those stories, but know even misleading or deceptive information should be cause for you to dig a little bit deeper. There’s enough of a nugget of truth to make it bubble up. What is that truth?

Then, follow or subscribe to places where news about book banning is compiled. Yes, Literary Activism is one. But there are dozens of others. We might cover a lot of the same things, but often, some stuff gets reported to one outlet and not another, and/or searches conducted by one outlet are different from those at another. You can look for local-level groups doing the work, as they’ll offer focus and insight into the local censorship culture in a way that bigger roundups like this one never could (for example, Florida Freedom to Read and Texas Freedom to Read are excellent for news in both of those states and in no way could anyone covering things on the national level offer as much depth as they could!).

There is not and should not be any expectation to read it all all of the time. Give yourself a break—that’s not possible, as it’s not even possible for those of us who compile this information. But keeping it handy makes for great searching to learn or dispel myths or add context to stories you might see on social media or in your non-online life. It’s also helpful for understanding patterns in the book banning agenda so you can stay aware of these patterns being applied in your own community.

Share stories that concern you with your friends and social media outlets. Something I’ve said again and again to folks is that sharing it with me doesn’t help online. I probably know and/or have written about it (i.e., if I share a story on Twitter, replying to me with outrage is not going to be as effective as retweeting it with your outrage so your friends see it). You will make a difference by sharing it with your following, be it 1 person or 24,000 people or 500,000 people. You never know who will be seeing or hearing it or acknowledging it for the first time.

Pick One Thing

You’ve done the most crucial stuff above. If you’ve got anything in the reserves to do more, pick one thing. This could be getting involved in a local anti-censorship group or creating an anti-censorship organization locally . It could be writing letters to your local paper about the importance of your library and/or school library. It could be lobbying on behalf of librarians and the need for a credentialed school librarian in every educational institution. It could be coordinating or attending a banned books club on your own or in conjunction with a local literary establishment, like a bookstore or library or poetry group.

Too often, we think we need to do it all. The truth is doing the first three things on the list requires an hour or less of time per month (the fourth thing takes as much time and energy as you’d like to commit). They’re the most pressing, crucial, and effective for change.

Everything else is important and valuable, but don’t feel you need to do it all. You don’t and you cannot. Pick what fills you up and encourages you to not only do the first items on this list but also help you catalyze others to do the same.

Book Censorship News for April 26, 2024

• Four more books have been banned in Cobb County Schools (GA). The books are Lucky, It Ends With Us, 13 Reasons Why, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower .
• Mike Hixenbaugh is one of the most reliable and consistent journalists out there covering extremism in schools and beyond. His recent piece about the ongoing controversy at Metropolis Public Library (IL) is a must-read .
• Utah’s new book banning law will have grave consequences… if the state can figure out how to even implement it .
• Fade and Empire of Storms might be pulled from Alachua County Schools (FL). The “might” here is perhaps the more interesting story: it’s some college student who might not even be a resident in the district who brought about the challenges.
• The Freedom Writers Diary and Crown of Midnight are banned now in Horry County Schools (SC) .
• Washoe County Library (NV) will not be banning books that “conservative activists” want pulled because they’re homophobic.
• “California lawmakers recently voted down a bill requiring school boards to ban books with “harmful material” from libraries and classrooms, legislation that would have given parents the ability to sue those that did not comply.” Remember that it’s not just “red” states with such terrible bills.
• CNN covers the canceling of Maulik Pancholy’s book event at Cumberland Valley School District in Pennsylvania. This story is especially important for how it shows the mechanisms of banning and censorship work—this did not come from the administration but entirely from the school board. You need to vote .
• “ Idaho House Bill 710 , also known as the Library Bill was signed into law by Idaho Governor Brad Little. The law states that any parents or child, whether they’re a resident of Idaho or not, can complain about a book they deem to be inappropriate for their child’s age group. Some of the examples of inappropriate content are pornographic content and homosexual references. After receiving the complaint the library has 30 days to relocate that book to an adults-only area, if not they will have a monetary penalty.” For all of the claims of needing local control, if ANYONE can complain about a book in an Idaho library and get it moved or the library gets fined… that’s not what local control is , first of all. This bill is explicitly aimed at destroying public institutions of democracy.
• An “inappropriate book” was distributed to low-income kids via a partnership between Amarillo Independent School District (TX) and StoryBridge, ending their relationship following a parental complaint. No poor kids will get books now because one of the books had same-sex parents .
• Carroll County, Maryland, commissioners want to withhold funding to local public libraries because they support the Freedom to Read legislation in the state. You can’t make it up .
• “The school district’s plan to offer an optional class for some first graders at Schavey Road Elementary School on the use of pronouns by individuals drew backlash, enough that by Friday the district had reversed course and canceled the plan.” This was going to happen because of a classroom story time with the book They, She, He, Me: Free to Be ! in the Michigan school. OPTIONAL .
• The expensive nightmare of book banning for librarians in Alabama.
• A group of right-wing Catholics showed up to the Mercer County public library in Celina (OH) this past weekend to pray the rosary over… books they are offended by in the collection .
• Rockingham County School Board (VA) approved a new book review policy amid their reviews of dozens of books. It has two different policies depending on whether the complaint is over the book being sexually explicit or not .
• Anoka-Hennepin School District (MN) is the largest in the state and is dealing with a board candidate who refuses to vote on a budget because he is a puppet of the 1776 Project PAC and believes, among other things, social studies classes are only telling a biased history. It’s your blue states, too.
• So far, 26 books have been banned this year in Rutherford County Schools (TN).
• Eight months after being pulled from shelves “for review,” the Fort Worth Independent School District (TX) is returning some of the books back to shelves. How many is unknown, though 100 were initially pulled and not all will be returned. If you’re paywalled like I am, here’s an unpaywalled version of the story .
• The Lafayette Parish Public Library (LA) board president is proud of the bigoted and racist and censorious new policy on book displays .
• Dragon Ball Z, Volumes 1, 2, and 3 have been challenged in the Eau Claire School District (WI). Complaints are over the “nudity” and “sexualized content.” Note: that series is 21 years old now.
• A look at the teens and adults on the ground in Texas pushing to repeal the READER Act.
• Seaside Public Library (OR) is dealing with a city council that has members eager to ban books in the library, sparked by being mad about promoting Banned Books Week. One proposal was letting parents opt their kids out of entire sections of the library .
• “On Tuesday, the Alabama House of Representatives passed legislation to prevent public school teachers in the 6th through the 8th grades from teaching LGBTQ+ ideology in Alabama schools.” This is America in 2024. The legislation came because in health classes , gender identity is a topic of discussion . But the bill is so broad and vague that it’s likely educators who have a book with LGBTQ+ characters in their classroom will be targeted by the folks with too much time on their hands.

Also In This Story Stream

• Google Is Destroying Your Access to News: Book Censorship News, April 19, 2024
• What Young People Can Do About Book Bans: Book Censorship News, April 12, 2024
• Sexual Assault Awareness Month & Book Banning: Book Censorship News, April 5, 2024
• How Public Libraries Are Targeted Right Now—It’s Not “Just” Books: Book Censorship News, March 29, 2024
• The 2024 Lambda Literary Awards Shortlists Are Here
• You’re Wrong About These Common Myths About Book Ban: Book Censorship News, March 22, 2024
• State Anti-Book Ban Legislation Updates: Book Censorship News, March 15, 2024
• They’re Dismantling Higher Education, Too: Book Censorship News, March 8, 2024
• The Landmine of Common Sense Media: Book Censorship News, March 1, 2024

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Gainesville community members publicly read banned books, resist government censorship

In the plaza in front of Gainesville city hall, a crowd of about 100 people came to listen on Sunday afternoon to stories that their children or grandchildren may be barred from hearing in school.

The “Banned Book Read Out,” hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Social Justice Council, brought 10 selected people to read out excerpts and poems from books banned or challenged by the Florida state government, or works that have been challenged in the past. Topics included literature exploring African Americans, anti-war themes and the Holocaust. Attendees were also given the chance to take home a banned book.

“I just thought there’d be a gathering of like-minded people here, and I better dart over here to see what they’re reading,” Jim Porter, an attendee of the event, said. “I didn’t realize it was going to be that good.”

Zoharah Simmons, an activist during the Civil Rights Movement and a former UF professor, was the Mistress of Ceremonies for the event. Speakers at the event were primarily well-known figures in the Gainesville educational or social justice community.

“We are here today speaking out against the banning of books that tell the true history of our country and document the experiences of all those who suffered from these oppressions in the past and currently,” Simmons said during the event.

The controversial signing of HB 1069 by Ron DeSantis on May 17, 2023, unleashed a wave of challenges to literary works. The bill restricted instructional content on reproductive health and human sexuality in public school. If broken, teachers could face a variety of penalties ranging from fines to loss of teaching certification to even criminal charges.

Florida led the nation in book titles challenged for restriction or removals, with around 2,700 challenges in 2023, the American Library Association reported in March. Texas comes second in the nation with nearly 1,500 challenges. Alachua County has a list of challenged books in the county on a spreadsheet created by District Media Specialist Patty Duval.

The process to review books is often extensive. When a book is challenged by an individual, the district reviews its content and decides if it should be removed from shelves. If the challenge is not successful at the district level, the challenger can elect for the work to be reviewed by a hearing officer.

HB 1069 received backlash from many Floridians who cite restrictions of titles to be a step backwards in society. Attendees of the event came to show their support of literary freedom and progress.

“I did not think that something as regressive as going back to book bans would be something we’d be experiencing here, especially in Gainesville, and we’re resisting it as much as we can,” Eric Admunson, an attendee of the event, said. “And it should be resisted because it’s a form of repression that’s not acceptable.”

Byron Prugh is a former teacher at Hidden Oak Elementary school, located at 2100 Fort Clarke Blvd. In 2011, more than ten years before the book ban, Prugh left Florida after receiving pushback from parents when teaching certain books and later ended up in Portland, Oregon. One such book was, “Number the Stars,” a fiction novel set in World War II that follows a family risking their lives to save Jewish people from Nazis, and “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry,” a novel that explores racial and economic inequalities that African Americans may face.

“I feel much safer as an educator out in Oregon,” Prugh, who attended the event, said. “I have colleagues who are former teachers and current teachers in the school systems here in Florida, and they definitely are worried about the contents of some of their classroom libraries.”

Sherri Admunson is a former librarian who has lived in Gainesville since 1974. She, like many others, sees diversity in literary topics as something that shouldn’t be challenged, but welcomed.

“It’s important for children to hear about all the different ways people live their lives and what a difference it can make in our world,” Admunson said.

In response to such high numbers of challenges in Florida, DeSantis signed HB 1285 on Tuesday. The bill will put a limit on the number of challenges on school materials an individual without a student enrolled in a district can make per year. Still, literary censorship is an ongoing debate in Florida and across the nation.

“We’re robbing people of experience, potential wisdom, strength and the ability to not be shocked and surprised by everything they see when they grow up when we take the books away from the kids,” Porter said.

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41 countries ban religion-related groups; Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baha’is among the most commonly targeted

Government restrictions on religion take many forms around the world. Particularly restrictive governments often limit religious expression by banning certain groups – including entire faiths, social movements or political organizations that have ties to religion.

In fact, 41 countries – or around a fifth (21%) of those evaluated – banned at least one religion-related group in 2019, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of laws and policies in effect in 198 countries in 2019, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baha’is were among the most frequently banned groups.

The Middle East-North Africa region had the highest share of countries (55%, or 11 out of 20 countries in the region) with bans on religion-related groups in 2019. Asia and the Pacific – the largest region in the study, with 50 nations – had the greatest number of countries with bans (17 out of 50 countries, or 34% of the region). Sub-Saharan Africa had eight countries with bans (representing about 17% of the 48 states in the region), Europe had three (or about 7% of the region’s 45 countries) and the Americas had two nations with such bans in place (representing about 6% of the region’s 35 countries).

Pew Research Center analyzes government bans on religious groups, spiritual practices or movements, and political groups with ties to religion as part of an annual series that measures the extent to which governments and societies around the world impinge on religious beliefs and practices.

The analysis is based on factual information about laws, policies and actions coded from a set of publicly available sources, including the U.S. Department of State’s annual reports on international religious freedom, annual reports from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, reports and databases from a variety of European and UN bodies, and several independent, nongovernmental organizations. (For a full list, read the report Methodology .)

The study does not include bans on groups that are formally designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department or banned groups within a country that have been shown to engage in systematic violence.

The  most recent report  in this annual series, “ Globally, Social Hostilities Related to Religion Decline in 2019, While Government Restrictions Remain at Highest Levels ,” is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world. To measure global restrictions on religion in 2019 – the most recent year for which data is available – the study rates 198 countries and territories by their levels of government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion using a consistent methodology. The latest study, the 12th annual, is based on the same 10-point indexes used in the previous studies.

• The  Government Restrictions Index   (GRI) measures government laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs and practices. The GRI comprises 20 measures of restrictions, including efforts by governments to ban particular faiths, prohibit conversion, limit preaching or give preferential treatment to one or more religious groups.
• The  Social Hostilities Index (SHI)  measures acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations or groups in society. This includes religion-related armed conflict or terrorism, mob or sectarian violence, harassment over attire for religious reasons, or other religion-related intimidation or abuse. The SHI includes 13 measures of social hostilities.

Here is the full religious restrictions report published in 2021, and its methodology .

This analysis is based on the Center’s most recent restrictions on religion report , which examines the extent to which governments and societies impinge on religious groups and practices. Data is collected from a wide range of sources , including the U.S. Department of State’s International Religious Freedom reports. For the purposes of this analysis, the term “banned” refers to official prohibitions that prevent a group from legally operating in a country.

Many of the groups listed as “banned” in the sources consulted also count as “banned” in this analysis. However, some are not counted, including those that the U.S. State Department labels “ foreign terrorist organizations ” or those that have been shown to engage in systematic violence. (While authorities often cite security concerns, such as a group’s alleged links to violence, as a reason for imposing a ban, some governments use security concerns to target groups or people that pose a political threat, or they label religious groups as being “deviant” or a “cult” when these groups do not adhere to what the authorities deem to be acceptable religious practices. Those types of bans are included in this analysis.)

In some cases, governments may restrict or target specific groups within their borders but not formally ban them ; these groups are not counted as banned. The source documents also may not cover every religion-related ban in the world or capture every country in which a group is banned.

The Center’s annual restrictions on religion study also examines other types of government limits on religious activity, such as laws that curtail the religious activity of allowed groups; official actions and policies that favor certain groups over others; and harassment of certain groups or individuals that can amount to physical violence. Based on the extent of these restrictions, the report sorts countries into categories ranging from “very high” to “low” levels of government restrictions .

Among the 41 nations that banned religion-related groups in 2019, 21 also had “very high” government restrictions on religion, accounting for 91% of the countries in the report with “very high” government restrictions on religion.

Commonly banned groups

Three groups faced bans in multiple countries in 2019: Jehovah’s Witnesses , who identify as Christian but differ from other Christians in some ways ; Baha’is , a faith originating in Iran that preaches human unity and the continuity of all religions; and Ahmadis , a group with roots in India that derives tenets from Islamic teachings.

Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned in eight countries spanning the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the Middle East-North Africa region. In Russia, for example, a 2017 decision by the nation’s Supreme Court banned Jehovah’s Witnesses, criminalizing their activities as being “extremist.” In 2019, hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia faced detentions, travel restrictions, investigations and raids on their homes.

Baha’is were banned in six countries in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East-North Africa regions in 2019. In Iran, Baha’is faced multiple restrictions and were barred from certain types of work, especially in the food industry, because they were considered “unclean.” Members of the faith also were blocked from government jobs, higher education institutions and receiving national pensions. They could not inherit property or have their marriages fully recognized.

Egypt has had long-standing bans on both Baha’is and Jehovah’s Witnesses , denying them benefits and the ability to perform routine tasks – such as banking or registering for school – that are afforded to recognized groups. In 2019, Baha’i marriages were not legally recognized, and the country prohibited adherents from designating their religious affiliation on national identity cards. Baha’is and Jehovah’s Witnesses in the country were not permitted to have places of worship or import religious literature. Members of these groups reported that the Egyptian government allowed them to practice their faith in private in small numbers, but that authorities prevented them from holding public religious gatherings.

Ahmadis, meanwhile, were banned in four countries in 2019, according to the sources used in this study. Pakistan had laws that prohibited Ahmadis from calling themselves Muslims and banned them from preaching or proselytizing. Ahmadi community leaders in Pakistan reported that 11 individuals were charged for practicing their faith and that six of them were arrested on blasphemy charges. According to Ahmadi leaders, some Pakistani government agencies also used a 2018 court decision to deny Ahmadis national identity cards.

In Brunei, all three groups – Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baha’is and Ahmadis – were banned in 2019 as they were considered “deviant.”

Types of bans and enforcement levels

In some countries, only certain registered religious groups are officially recognized, and it is illegal to adhere to any other religious faith.

In Eritrea, only four religious groups are officially recognized: the Eritrean Orthodox Church, Sunni Islam, the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea. Other religious groups cannot register and are treated as illegal. For instance, the government only permits Sunni Islam and bans all other practices of Islam .

Uzbekistan criminalizes activities by unregistered religious groups, which are considered to be “illegal,” and designates certain Islamic groups to be extremist and therefore “prohibited.”  Members and organizers of illegal religious groups can be imprisoned up to five years, and those in prohibited groups can be jailed for up to 20 years. As of 2019, authorities in Uzbekistan had criminalized membership in 22 religious organizations, citing threats to the government’s secular authority and the need to prevent “incitement of interreligious instability and hatred,” according to the U.S. State Department.

Although the government of Uzbekistan announced the closure of a prison known for incarcerating and torturing religious prisoners, thousands were still being held in 2019 on “fabricated” charges for extremism or membership in banned groups, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Despite these ongoing issues, the government made other notable moves to reduce restrictions, such as enforcing a prohibition on raids on religious communities.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government criminalizes groups that it considers to be “cult organizations. ” These include the Falun Gong movement and several Christian groups, which face detentions and “disappearances,” and in some cases torture and death, according to the U.S. State Department. In 2019, several reports also detailed the forcible extraction of organs from religious prisoners – mainly from Falun Gong practitioners – that for years were conducted for the country’s organ transplant system.

In some countries, practices considered to be part of folk or indigenous religions are outlawed. In Cameroon , Central African Republic and Tanzania , for example, practicing witchcraft is illegal.

In many countries, repercussions for membership in banned religious groups can include detention, raids and seizure of property. But a few countries may formally ban groups yet tolerate them in practice. In Jamaica, for example, the country still has colonial-era laws that criminalized the Afro-Caribbean religious practices of Obeah and Myalism , but they are not enforced. While the Bahamas also outlaws Obeah practices , the penalties are not always enforced there either.

In some countries, governments cite security as a rationale for banning political or social groups with religious affiliations. Sometimes the groups are opposition movements to parties currently in power.

In Morocco, a social movement with Islamic roots called the Justice and Charity Organization is banned . The group rejects King Mohamed VI’s spiritual authority and, although unregistered, is able to operate and hold events and demonstrations with some interference from the government.

In Bahrain, a Sunni-governed country where Shiite leaders have faced routine detention and harassment, the government banned the largely Shiite Al-Wefaq political opposition party in 2016. In 2014, the country had also banned the Islamic Ulema Council, a group of Shiite clerics. 

Samirah Majumdar is a research associate focusing on religion research at Pew Research Center

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• Girl Scout who created banned book nooks thanks Hanover for 'censored' Gold Award
• Apr 25, 2024

Lindley created book nooks that featured books banned in Hanover school libraries.

The Girl Scout who created “book nooks,” little libraries carrying the titles that were removed from Hanover County Public Schools over the past year, spoke to the County Board of Supervisors this week.

Kate Lindley said that supervisors had “bestowed” an honor upon her greater than any proclamation when it “censored” a proclamation for her winning a Girl Scout Gold Award.

A supervisor during the meeting Wednesday told the crowd supporting Lindley that proclamations are ultimately issued by the board and while requests can be made, board members have the right to vote on the wording for an award.

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Kate Lindley, left, reacts as Hanover County Board of Supervisors chair Susan Dibble reads the recognition letter for Lindley’s Girl Scout Gold Star project. In recognizing five Hanover Girl Scouts for winning a Gold Award, the Board of Supervisors singled out Lindley’s proclamation. New wording for her proclamation omitted the word “banned,” all references to “censorship” and the location of each book nook.

Lindley, a Hanover resident and senior at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School, created her “Free to Read” project that included, among other initiatives, book nooks at local businesses that made books banned from Hanover County school libraries available to read.

The project won a Gold Award, the Girl Scouts’ highest honor. To date, that project has grown from 91 books to more than 438 books — many titles have been removed from schools across the country — largely through donations adding up to more than $3,600.

In recognizing five Hanover Girl Scouts for winning a Gold Award, the Hanover Board of Supervisors singled out Lindley’s proclamation. New wording for her proclamation omitted the word “banned,” all references to “censorship” and the location of each book nook.

Kate Lindley, left, accepts a plaque from Hanover County Board of Supervisors chair Susan Dibble for Lindley’s Girl Scout Gold Star project pertaining to banned books in Hanover on Wednesday. The project won a Gold Award, the Girl Scouts' highest honor.

Instead of explaining that Lindley’s project included information about why each book was banned, why they are valuable and where they can be found, the proclamation read that her project identifies “locations where books were available outside Hanover County Public School Libraries.”

“I would like to let you, the Board of Supervisors know, that you have bestowed upon me the greatest honor you could. Greater than that of any proclamation, in your censorship of my Gold Award,” Lindley said. “You have shown the world that you are afraid to call something what it is, be that a banned book or a deselected one.”

She then read the original wording that was submitted for the award.

Because Hanover’s School Board members are appointed, versus elected, school issues sometimes come to the feet of the supervisors who appoint them.

Kate Lindley, center, walks away from the podium after addressing the Hanover Board of Supervisors. “I would like to let you, the Board of Supervisors know, that you have bestowed upon me the greatest honor you could. Greater than that of any proclamation, in your censorship of my Gold Award,” Lindley said. “You have shown the world that you are afraid to call something what it is, be that a banned book or a deselected one.”

Hanover County Public Schools has removed around 100 books from its school libraries this past year. It started with the removal of a clutch of 19 books last June through a majority school board vote. The board later directed staff to begin a process that resulted in the removal of a further 75 books.

A nationwide trend has seen similar struggles in school libraries across the country, with many protests saying that book bans or removals were targeted at books with LGBTQ+ characters and themes, characters of color or alternative societal structures.

Books removed from Hanover County schools included some of the nation’s most controversial titles, such as Juno Dawson’s “This Book is Gay,” and “All Boys Aren’t Blue.” It also included classics such as Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five.”

All the while, the School Board and Hanover residents supporting the School Board’s decisions say the removed books contained sexual content that was not suitable for school-aged children.

Kate Lindley addresses the Hanover Board of Supervisors. Hanover County Public Schools has removed around 100 books from its school libraries this past year. It started with the removal of a clutch of 19 books last June through a majority school board vote.

Several others spoke in front of Hanover’s board Wednesday night in support of Lindley. Many were wearing Girl Scout uniforms or explained that they had been Girl Scouts in the county when they were in school.

Cold Harbor Supervisor F. Michael Herzberg IV told residents that it is ultimately up to the board when it comes to the wording for any proclamation.

“Proclamations are not a right, they’re not guaranteed. As a board member I have the right to support the request or not. There has been another request that has been made that I didn’t support previously,” Herzberg said.

He continued to support the School Board’s majority opinion that books were “deselected” for containing “pornography” and explicit content.

“I support their decision. Books that contain pornography, sexually explicit content, do not have my support. I’m not going to celebrate them during banned book week, any of that,” Herzberg said.

He opened one book, announcing that he would not show it to the audience but that he would show it to other board members, saying that it depicted a sexual position.

Last year, Kate Lindley placed Banned Book Nooks at two locations in Hanover County, including this one at We Think In Ink in Ashland.

Several people in the crowd said that the book was never available in school libraries.

Herzberg read a passage from the book that referred to pornography as a “fun, sugary, treat,” and mentioned the idea of consuming “too much” pornography.

“That is not educational, that is not appropriate to be in taxpayer funded libraries. It’s not appropriate to be in front of children,” Herzberg said. “I represent 14,000 people or so … and I know they all don’t agree with me … the overwhelming majority of citizens, taxpayers and residents told me that they did not want that kind of material in the public school system.”

Here are 19 books banned by the Hanover School Board in 2023

A court of mist and fury.

"A Court of Mist and Fury" by Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Silver Flames

"A Court of Silver Flames" by Sarah J. Maas

All Boys Aren't Blue

"All Boys Aren't Blue" by George M. Johnson

"Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk

"Flamer" by Mike Curato

Haunted - Chuck Palahniuk

"Identical" by Ellen Hopkins

"Infandous" by Elana K. Arnold

Looking For Alaska

"Looking for Alaska" by John Green

"Lucky" by Marissa Stapley

"Red Hood" by Elana K. Arnold

"Sold" by Patricia McCormick

The Bluest Eye

"The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison

"This Book is Gay" by Juno Dawson

"Tilt" by Ellen Hopkins

"Tricks" by Ellen Hopkins

Water for Elephants

"Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

Let's Talk About It.jpg

Let's Talk About It: The Teen's Guide to Sex, Relationships and Being Human by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.jpg

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews.

Sean Jones (804) 649-6911

[email protected]

Twitter: @SeanJones_RTD

Youth Issues/Families and Education reporter, Henrico and Hanover Counties Reporter

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The secret to saving old books could be gluten-free glues

"Bookworm" is a cute thing to call a voracious reader, but actual bookworms -- as well as microorganisms and time -- break down the flour pastes commonly used to keep old publications in one piece. Now, researchers in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research have analyzed the proteins in wheat-based glues applied in historic bookbinding to provide insights on their adhesiveness and how they degrade. This information could help conservators restore and preserve treasured tomes for future generations.

Wheat-based glues have been used as far back as Ancient Egypt, but little is known about their protein makeup. Flour glues are made from the insides of wheat grains, which includes the gluten that's so delicious to bookworms and microorganisms alike. Starch glue, on the other hand, is made from the proteins that remain after most of that gluten is removed, making it less attractive to pests. Understanding the nature of the proteins in these glues and how they affect the adhesives would help book conservators choose the best approaches and materials for their work. So, Rocio Prisby and colleagues created protein profiles for both flour and starch glues, identified differences between them, then used this information to analyze books from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) archives.

To create the protein profiles, called proteomes, the researchers first extracted proteins from lab-made versions of flour and starch glues. Then, they used mass spectrometry data and bioinformatics software to identify the types and relative abundance of proteins in the samples. The team discovered that flour glue has more proteins, and a wider variety of them, than starch glue. Additionally, the proteins in starch glue were particularly durable and flexible, making it a potentially better choice than flour glue for book repairs.

The researchers next used their protein profiles to analyze historic book binding samples from the NLM archives. They confirmed that the adhesives were flour-based because of their gluten content and identified degraded gluten in the samples, which could indicate damage and a loss of stickiness. They also identified that the chemical breakdown of leather and glue in a book's cover impact each other, possibly leading to faster overall deterioration. This work provides information that could signal to a conservator the need for repair, potentially preventing a book from being damaged or destroyed. More broadly, the researchers state that the results demonstrate the potential of protein analysis in guiding conservation efforts.

The authors acknowledge support from the National Library of Medicine.

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• Rocio Prisby, Alessandra Luchini, Lance A. Liotta, Caroline Solazzo. Wheat-Based Glues in Conservation and Cultural Heritage: (Dis)solving the Proteome of Flour and Starch Pastes and Their Adhering Properties . Journal of Proteome Research , 2024; DOI: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.3c00804

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Hot Topics: Censorship, Banned, and Challenged Books

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Banning Books and the Law

Us congress bills, georgia general assembly.

• Scholarly Articles
• Banning Books and the Law The First Amendment guarantees free speech, which extends to the school curriculum. It gives anyone living in the U.S., including students, the freedom to express any opinion they like. However, this right faces challenges regarding the content in school libraries. School board members and school officials are influenced by state law, the local board of education, and local sentiments. They often grapple with deciding which books are suitable for students who are also minors.
• Congress.Gov Legislative activities of the federal government. Search bills, committee reports, etc.
• H.Amdt.237 — 118th Congress (2023-2024) Description: An amendment numbered 35 printed in House Report 118-142 to prohibit the Department of Defense Education Activity schools from purchasing and having pornographic and radical gender ideology books in their libraries. Amends Bill: H.R.2670
• H.Amdt.119 — 118th Congress (2023-2024) An amendment numbered 9 printed in House Report 118-12 to provide that nothing in the Act, or the amendments made by this Act, should be construed as authorizing or granting parents the ability to deny any student who is not their own child from accessing any books or other reading materials otherwise available from. Amends Bill: H.R.5
• H.R.6830 - Books Save Lives Act To require certain libraries to maintain a diverse collection of books, and for other purposes.
• Georgia General Assembly Search bills and resolutions from 2001 to present.
• Senate Bill 394 Senate Bill 394 would create the Georgia Council of Library Materials Standards, whose members would be appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the House, House minority leader, and Senate minority leader.
• S.B. 226 In April of 2022, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed Senate Bill (S.B.) 226 into law, which changes the process by which Georgia schools may ban books. This law, which went into effect at the beginning of this year, provides a streamlined process by which books can be banned in public schools.
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• Last Updated: Apr 26, 2024 3:19 PM
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“This is a dangerous time for readers and the public servants who provide access to reading materials. Readers, particularly students, are losing access to critical information, and librarians and teachers are under attack for doing their jobs.” - Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom 

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. By focusing on efforts to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship. Typically (but not always) held during the last week of September, the annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community — librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas. 

In a time of intense political polarization, library staff in every state are facing an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom documented  1,247 demands to censor library books and resources in 2023 .  The number of titles targeted for censorship surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching the highest levels ever documented by OIF in more than 20 years of tracking:  4,240 unique book titles were targeted for removal from schools and libraries.  This tops the previous high from 2022, when 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship. Titles representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47% of those targeted in censorship attempts. 

The theme for Banned Books Week 2024 (September 22-28) is "Freed Between the Lines."  We can find freedom in the pages of a book — but book bans and censorship threaten that freedom, along with many other rights and institutions. During Banned Books Week 2024 and beyond, let’s share our love of right to read and the freedom found in books. Let’s be Freed Between the Lines!

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About Book Bans and Challenges

Books are still being banned and challenged today. A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials.

While books have been and continue to be banned, part of the Banned Books Week celebration is the fact that, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read.

Top 10 Most Challenged Books

The most challenged books of 2023.  For lists of the Top 10 Most Challenged Books for each year, visit the  Top 10 Most Challenged Books Archive .

Censorship by the Numbers

Censorship data paints a vivid picture of attempts to ban or restrict library books and resources across the U.S.

Display Ideas

Banned book displays kick-off conversations about censorship and inspire readers to explore challenged materials. Check out some display ideas from libraries across the U.S. — some of which only require construction paper and an imagination.

Additional Resources

Banned Books Week Q&A This resource offers issues, strategies, and resources for preparing your professional community (teacher librarians and public librarians) to celebrate Banned Books Week.

Banned Books Week Coalition The Banned Books Week Coalition, which includes OIF, is an international alliance of diverse organizations joined by a commitment to increase awareness about censorship attempts and to encourage the defense of the freedom to read. The Coalition website includes downloads, resources, and an event calendar that anyone can use.

A History of Banned Books Week Read about the history of Banned Books Week and ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom in American Libraries Magazine.

Report Censorship Report challenges to or bans of materials, resources, programs, and services to ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Media Inquiries For media inquiries or to schedule an interview related to Banned Books Week or other ALA intellectual freedom initiatives, contact ALA's Communications and Marketing Office .

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Fact Sheet on FTC’s Proposed Final Noncompete Rule

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The following outline provides a high-level overview of the FTC’s proposed final rule :

• Specifically, the final rule provides that it is an unfair method of competition—and therefore a violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act—for employers to enter into noncompetes with workers after the effective date.
• Fewer than 1% of workers are estimated to be senior executives under the final rule.
• Specifically, the final rule defines the term “senior executive” to refer to workers earning more than $151,164 annually who are in a “policy-making position.”
• Reduced health care costs: $74-$194 billion in reduced spending on physician services over the next decade.
• New business formation: 2.7% increase in the rate of new firm formation, resulting in over 8,500 additional new businesses created each year.
• This reflects an estimated increase of about 3,000 to 5,000 new patents in the first year noncompetes are banned, rising to about 30,000-53,000 in the tenth year.
• This represents an estimated increase of 11-19% annually over a ten-year period.
• The average worker’s earnings will rise an estimated extra $524 per year. 

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