An article yesterday in The Guardian caught my eye: “Utah outlaws books by Judy Blume and Sarah J Maas in first statewide ban.”
It caught my eye because I’m opposed to book banning. I think adults should be able to read anything they choose and other adults have no right to interfere.
However, this ban was enacted in a very conservative state by a very conservative legislature — some 80% Mormon, according to Wikipedia. This, when the state as a whole is said to be 60.68% Mormon or, in a more recent report, 42%.
Be that as it may, I still object to book banning by anyone.
Here in the Denver metro, some school boards have implemented, or tried to implement, restrictions on their libraries, provoking a long and thoughtful conversation with my son.
Yes, we decided, children should be protected from certain types of literature. However, such decisions should be made by residents of the county, patrons of the county’s schools, and preferably those who actually have children in the affected schools. Certainly the decisions should not be made by outsiders who may not even live in the area and are promoting the bans primarily as a way to steer the kids into their particular way of thinking. Obviously this would preclude any statewide bans.
Given that children should be protected in some way, we concluded that the best thing would be to allow the libraries to stock whatever books they choose — with questionable adult, banned, or challenged books in a special section to which the kids would not have access without specific permission from their parents.
That’s it. That’s all. Parents should choose what their kids can read — not the state, not outsiders with political agendas, not religious conservatives, not extremists. Parents. Period.
I wrote about local book banning efforts last November in “Targeting the young.” That was just a couple of school districts, strictly Amateurville compared to Utah’s new law. But all of it disturbing nonetheless.
According to the American Library Association, these are the ten most challenged books of 2023. Their list includes reasons for the challenges and a résumé of each book. I’d not heard of any of them, but I’m a few years past watching what my son and grandchildren read.
1. “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe
2. “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson
3. “This Book Is Gay” by Juno Dawson
4. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky
5. “Flamer” by Mike Curato
6. “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison
7./8. (tie) “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrew
7./8. (tie) “Tricks” by Ellen Hobson
9. “Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human” by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan
10. “Sold” by Patricia McCormick
“All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let’s get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States — and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!”
― Kurt Vonnegut
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Illustration by Jane Mount
I too am with Kurt. Along with book-burning comes its companion, government-mandated teaching of preferred material. The following is a letter recently sent by Herb Van Fleet to the Tulsa World newspaper. (Herb can be found on Facebook.)
“State Superintendent Ryan Walters, it seems, wants to move Sunday School to Public School. But many school districts in this state don’t seem to be too excited about that prospect. So far eight districts have said “no thanks” and the rest are considering what to do.
It’s one thing to have the bible in the school libraries. But, it’s another to teach from it.
In 2023, the Davis County School District in Utah banned the bible from elementary and middle schools for containing “vulgarity and violence.” And, campaigns to ban the bible in other states school districts are becoming more common.
The objections to it are because it contains material inappropriate for children. The text, especially in the old testament, contains graphic descriptions of atrocities, slavery, violence, torture, rape, child abuse, cruelty, misogyny, barbarism, murder, racism, infanticide, genocide, and crimes against humanity, among other behaviors that children should probably not be exposed to.
No doubt, Walters will cherry pick the scriptures he wants taught. But that would be censorship. And censored material is anathema to education.
Schools should keep the bible in the library and out of the classroom.”
Oh good grief. Seriously? Which specific translation of the Bible? (I could hardly understand King James when I was a kid in Oklahoma.) What about the Koran? The Torah? The Book of Mormon?
Yes, put Bibles in the library if you want to, but teach from them only in church and Sunday School. Honestly, the nerve of some people.
I so get the rant, we can never stop ranting
If only ranting were enough. We must also vote! (And thanks again for your work at the polls!)
yes, and yes –
I have a big problem with book bans. I have to say, I have read several of the books in the banner to your post, and a couple of them were hugely impactful. This is, absolutely, a complicated issue with layers of implications for every decision, but it is never, ever okay for the government to issue absolute bans. I’m old, and I remember trying to understand why people in the Soviet Union wanted to bomb me and my family; my mother tried to explain propaganda to me and it was hard to wrap my little mind around the state controlling what you were allowed to know. Today, we have Project 2025 and people who want absolute control over what schools are allowed to teach and what books are available to us, and it is in our faces: state mandated propaganda. Nope. Not ever!!
Project 2025 and its assorted tenets and advocates make my blood run cold. Book banning is just the beginning, a relatively minor hole in the dike. But that’s all it takes … just one little hole …
Exactly!
Book banning is often done the most by people who are the loudest to demand their, “freedom.”
Aye, sad but true. I guess they mean their “freedom” to dictate to others.