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#1 Why your kids should read banned books

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#1 Why your kids should read banned books

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What do " The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," " The Catcher in the Rye," " The Great Gatsby," " Native Son," " To Kill a Mockingbird," " Fahrenheit 451" and " The Adventures of Captain Underpants " have in common? At one time or another, someone has tried to ban them from classrooms and public or school libraries.

The American Library Association launched Banned Books Week in 1982 to celebrate the freedom to read. Libraries, bookstores, publishers and teachers across the country use the week - this year it's Sept. 22-28 - to highlight great books that people have banned and to spark a discussion about censorship. At Common Sense Media, we think reading banned books offers families a chance to celebrate reading and promotes open access to ideas, both of which are keys to raising a lifelong reader.

Why do people ban books? Often it's for religious or political reasons: An idea, a scene or a character in the book offends their religion, sense of morality or political view. Some folks feel they need to protect children from the cursing, morally offensive behavior or racially insensitive language in a book. Or they think a book's content is too violent or too sexual.

I don't censor the books my children read. I think they'll be stronger for it.

The Civil War novel " The Red Badge of Courage" has been banned for its graphic depictions of war. The edgy teen bestseller " The Perks of Being a Wallflower" has been banned for its descriptions of sexual behavior and alcohol and drug use. Profanity and an explicit scene featuring oral sex got " Looking for Alaska " on a banned list.

Who is challenging these books? Parents, school board members, individuals, groups - yet what's considered offensive may depend on the era or specific community. As the ALA argues, these challenges pose a threat to freedom of speech and choice - freedoms Americans hold dear and are worth standing up for.

Here are five good reasons for kids to read banned books:

Today's edgy is tomorrow's classic. Original work pushes boundaries in topic, theme, plot and structure. What's shocking today may be assigned in English class five or 10 years from now if it has true literary merit. " The Great Gatsby " is a high school staple today, but it was shocking when its gin-soaked pages were published in 1925.

There's more to a book than the swear words in it. Many books have been banned for language that your kid has encountered before or will encounter soon. Even potty humor (like in "Captain Underpants") has caused people to call for a ban. A character's language may add realism to the story, or it may seem gratuitous or distracting - your kids can make their own judgments.

Kids crave relatable books. Banned books often deal with subjects that are realistic, timely and topical. Young people may find a character going through exactly what they are, which makes it a powerful reading experience and helps the reader sort out thorny issues such as grief, divorce, sexual assault, bullying, prejudice and sexual identity. The compelling teen rebels story " The Outsiders " has been banned, yet many middle-schoolers cite it as the book that turned them into readers.

Controversial books are a type of virtual reality. Exploring complex topics such as sexuality, violence, substance abuse, suicide and racism through well-drawn characters lets kids contemplate morality and vast aspects of the human condition, build empathy for people unlike themselves and possibly discover a mirror of their own experience. " Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry " is an eye-opening story of an African American family facing racism in 1930s Mississippi, yet it has been banned for having racial slurs.

They'll kick off a conversation. What did people find so disturbing in a book that they wanted to ban it, and to what extent was it a product of its time or did it defy social norms of its era? For example, the Harry Potter books were banned by people who felt they promoted magic. Reading a challenged book is a learning experience and can help your kids define their own values and opinions of its content.

This piece first ran at Common Sense Media. Regan McMahon is deputy editor for books at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that aims to help kids and parents navigate the world of media and technology.

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Perspective | Why your kid should read banned books

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What do " The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," " The Catcher in the Rye," " The Great Gatsby," " Native Son," " To Kill a Mockingbird," " Fahrenheit 451" and " The Adventures of Captain Underpants " have in common? At one time or another, someone has tried to ban them from classrooms and public or school libraries.

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#2 How banning books marginalizes children 

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#2 How banning books marginalizes children 

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Every year since 1982, an event known as Banned Books Week has brought attention to literary works frequently challenged by parents, schools, and libraries. The books in question sometimes feature scenes of violence or offensive language; sometimes they're opposed for religious reasons (as in the case of both Harry Potter and the Bible). But one unfortunate outcome is that 52 percent of the books challenged or banned in the last 10 years feature so-called "diverse content"-that is, they explore issues such as race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, mental illness, and disability. As a result, the organizers of Banned Books Week, which started Sunday, chose the theme "Celebrating Diversity" for 2016.

Since the inception of the American children's literature industry in the 1820s, publishers have had to grapple with the question of who their primary audience should be. Do kids' books cater to parents and adult cultural gatekeepers, or to young readers themselves? But as books that address issues of diversity face a growing number of challenges, the related question of which children both the industry and educators should serve has become more prominent recently. Who benefits when Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of Part-Time Indian, which deals with racism, poverty, and disability, is banned for language and "anti-Christian content"? Who's hurt when Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings's picture book I Am Jazz, about a transgender girl, is banned? The history of children's book publishing in America offers insight into the ways in which traditional attitudes about "appropriate" stories often end up marginalizing the lives and experiences of many young readers, rather than protecting them.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, debates over the target audience of the American children's-literature industry largely centered around the question of how much adults should trust children to choose what they read. Before the Civil War, the prevailing answer was "very little." Accordingly, kids' books and magazines addressed the instructional concerns of adults without worrying much about readers' interests. New entertainment options, from dime novels to nickelodeons, led to a greater effort to retaining children's attention by amusing them. Yet even as publishers focused more on engagement, they carefully avoided subjects that riled the parents who bought the books.

In researching my book Commercializing Childhood, I discovered that children's stories and magazines during the 19th century rarely discussed slavery. When the popular children's magazine The Juvenile Miscellany ran anti-slavery stories in the early 1830s, its largely New England-based audience abandoned it, and the magazine collapsed within 18 months. The outcome had a chilling effect on other publications. The subject of slavery had a brief revival during the war (when it served to highlight the evils of Southern society), but afterward the topic remained unpopular within the industry. Indeed, the recent #SlaveryWithASmile controversy over two books' depiction of slaves' lives indicates that publishers today still haven't figured out how to address the subject for younger children in a way that's both historically accurate and acceptable to parents.

When librarians and teachers reject works that may be "emotionally inappropriate" for children (a common reason), they're adhering to the traditional and mostly prevailing view that children's literature should avoid controversial topics. It's understandable that adults want to minimize children's anxiety, and schools are often under intense social and financial pressure to maintain established standards. But it 's also important to recognize that this tradition was established in the 19th century to serve the needs of the white, wealthy Protestant producers and consumers who have dominated the field of American children's literature for much of the past 200 years.

The distinction between books that have inspired calls for censorship (including series like Nancy Drew and The Hunger Games) versus the works that more often have actually been kept out of children's hands ( Huckleberry Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird, the novels of Judy Blume) reveals the insidious effects of this tradition. Whereas violence or elements of fantasy rarely leads to widespread censorship, concerns about race or sexuality are more likely to restrict circulation. It's an especially troubling tendency, considering the structural biases within the publishing industry that have made it harder for minority authors to get children's books published. In effect, this pattern means the industry serves those who benefit from the status quo, which is why most scholars see children's literature as a conservative force in American society.

There is an alternative tradition of using children's literature specifically to introduce more diverse perspectives to young readers that dates back to The Juvenile Miscellany, which encouraged empathy for American Indian and slave characters. This practice mostly remained economically and culturally marginalized until the 1960s, when books like Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day and Don Freeman's Corduroy began to naturalize the experiences of children of color. Around the same time, Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are and In The Night Kitchen challenged cultural taboos about addressing children's normal stages of psychological and emotional development.

Perhaps no recent book has illuminated the benefits of such an approach for young readers as much as R.J. Palacio's 2012 bestseller Wonder. This novel narrates the school year of 10-year-old Augie, a boy with a severe facial deformity, from his own perspective as well as those of the people that surround him. By encouraging children to imagine themselves in the place of Augie and his classmates, Wonder transports them beyond their own experiences and instills the feelings of empathy and humility that are an essential part of the reason why we tell stories.
Keeping books about certain types of children out of libraries perpetuates a vision of a sheltered American childhood that has rarely existed.
Despite Wonder's commercial success, a recent survey of 574 librarians by the School Library Journal suggests a trend toward a more conservative approach to producing and curating children's books. Content labels, restricted access areas, and self-censorship have all been on the rise since 2008, and in 2014, a group of children's book authors started the We Need Diverse Books campaign to highlight the lack of diversity in children's publishing.

Quiet decisions by libraries not to carry titles such as Kate Messner's The Seventh Wish, whose protagonist has an older sibling grappling with addiction, or Alex Gino's George, which is about the life of a transgender fourth-grader, reflect a resurgent fear and misinterpretation of difference. As Messner wrote on her blog after being disinvited from a planned school talk, "When we say 'This book is inappropriate,' we're telling those children 'your situation ... your family ... your life is inappropriate." More broadly, keeping books about certain types of children or experiences out of libraries or putting them on separate shelves perpetuates a troubling vision of a sheltered American childhood that in fact has rarely existed.

After publishing The Seventh Wish, Messner received several messages from librarians and parents concerned about the topics her book dealt with. One elementary-school librarian explained why she wouldn't share Messner's book with her students. "For now," the librarian said, "I just need the 10 and 11-year-olds biggest worry to be about friendships, summer camps, and maybe their first pimple or two." Messner responded by emphasizing a broader obligation that parents, teachers, writers, and publishers all share. "We don't serve only our children," Messner said. "We serve children in the real world."

That message of tolerance, compassion, and affirmation aligns with the values of Banned Books Week, as well as with the ideals of children's literary classics ranging from Little Women and Tom Sawyer to The Diary of Anne Frank and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. This shared sensibility is grounded in respect for young readers, which doesn't mean providing them with unfettered access to everything on the library shelves. Instead, it means that librarians, teachers, and parents curate children's choices with the goals of inspiring rather than obscuring new ideas. Such an approach allows kids to learn how to navigate imaginary worlds filled with differences, with the faith that they will apply those lessons to their own lives.

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Every year since 1982, an event known as Banned Books Week has brought attention to literary works frequently challenged by parents, schools, and libraries. The books in question sometimes feature scenes of violence or offensive language; sometimes they're opposed for religious reasons (as in the case of both Harry Potter and the Bible).

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This statement was originally developed in 1981, revised April 2009 to adhere to NCTE's Policy on Involvement of People of Color, and revised again in September 2018. The Right to Read and the Teacher of English
Overview: The Students' Right to Read provides resources that can be used to help discuss and ensure students' free access to all texts. The genesis of the Students' Right to Read was an original Council statement, "Request for Reconsideration of a Work," prepared by the Committee on the Right to Read of the National Council of Teachers of English and revised by Ken Donelson. The current Students' Right to Read statement represents an updated second edition that builds on the work of Council members dedicated to ensuring students the freedom to choose to read any text and opposing "efforts of individuals or groups to limit the freedom of choice of others." Supported through references from text challenges and links to resources, this statement discusses the history and dangers of text censorship which highlight the breadth and significance of the Students' Right to Read. The statement then culminates in processes that can be followed with different stakeholders when students' reading rights are infringed.

For many years, American schools have been pressured to restrict or deny students access to texts deemed objectionable by some individual or group. These pressures have mounted in recent years, and English teachers have no reason to believe they will diminish. The fight against censorship is a continuing series of skirmishes, not a pitched battle leading to a final victory over censorship.

We can safely make two statements about censorship: first, any text is potentially open to attack by someone, somewhere, sometime, for some reason; second, censorship is often arbitrary and irrational. For example, classics traditionally used in English classrooms have been accused of containing obscene, heretical, or subversive elements such as the following:

Plato's Republic: "the book is un-Christian"

Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days: "very unfavorable to Mormons"

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter: "a filthy book"

Shakespeare's Macbeth: "too violent for children today"

Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: "a poor model for young people"

Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: "contains homosexuality"

Modern works, even more than the classics, are criticized with terms such as "filthy," "un-American," "overly realistic," and "anti-war." Some books have been attacked merely for being "controversial," suggesting that for some people the purpose of education is not the investigation of ideas but rather the indoctrination of a certain set of beliefs and standards. Referencing multiple years of research completed by the American Library Association (ALA), the following statements represent complaints typical of those made against modern works of literature:

D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye: "profanity, lurid passages about sex, and statements defamatory to minorities, God, women, and the disabled"

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath: "uses the name of God and Jesus in a vain and profane manner"

Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson's And Tango Makes Three: "anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group"

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird: "promotes racial hatred, racial division, racial separation, and promotes white supremacy"

Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia: "occult/Satanism, offensive language, violence"

Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye: "offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group"

Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings's I Am Jazz: "inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group"

Some groups and individuals have also raised objections to literature written specifically for young people. As long as novels intended for young people stayed at the intellectual and emotional level of A Date for Marcy or A Touchdown for Thunderbird High, censors could forego criticism. But many contemporary novels for adolescents focus on the real world of young people-drugs, premarital sex, alcoholism, divorce, gangs, school dropouts, racism, violence, and sensuality. English teachers willing to defend classics and modern literature must be prepared to give equally spirited defense to serious and worthwhile children's and young adult novels.

Literature about minoritized ethnic or racial groups remains "controversial" or "objectionable" to many adults. As long as groups such as African Americans, Pacific Islanders, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Latinxs "kept their proper place"-awarded them by a White society-censors rarely raised their voices. But attacks have increased in frequency as minoritized groups have refused to observe their assigned "place." Though nominally, the criticisms of literature about minoritized racial or ethnic groups have usually been directed at "bad language," "suggestive situations," "questionable literary merit," or "ungrammatical English" (usually oblique complaints about the different dialect or culture of a group), the underlying motive for some attacks has unquestionably been discriminatory. Typical of censors' criticisms of ethnic works are the following comments:

Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: "homosexuality, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group"

Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima: "occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, violence"

Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner: "sexual violence, religious themes, 'may lead to terrorism'"

Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: "anti-family, cultural insensitivity, drugs/alcohol/smoking, gambling, offensive language, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, violence, depictions of bullying"

Books are not alone in being subject to censorship. Magazines or newspapers used, recommended, or referred to in English classes have increasingly drawn the censor's fire. Few libraries would regard their periodical collection as worthwhile or representative without some or all of the following publications, but all of them have been the target of censors on occasion:

National Geographic: "Nudity and sensationalism, especially in stories on barbaric foreign people."

Scholastic Magazine: "Doctrines opposing the beliefs of the majority, socialistic programs; promotes racial unrest and contains very detailed geography of foreign countries, especially those inhabited by dark people."

National Observer: "Right-wing trash with badly reported news."

New York Times: "That thing should be outlawed after printing the Pentagon Papers and helping our country's enemies."

The immediate results of demands to censor books or periodicals vary. At times, school boards and administrators have supported and defended their teachers, their use of materials under fire, and the student's right of access to the materials. At other times, however, special committees have been formed to cull out "objectionable works" or "modern trash" or "controversial literature." Some teachers have been summarily reprimanded for assigning certain works, even to mature students. Others have been able to retain their positions only after initiating court action.

Not as sensational, but perhaps more important, are the long range effects of censoring the rights of educators and students to self-select what they read and engage with. Schools have removed texts from libraries and classrooms and curricula have been changed when English teachers have avoided using or recommending works which might make some members of the community uncomfortable or angry. Over the course of their schooling, many students are consequently "educated" in a system that is hostile to critical inquiry and dialogue. And many teachers and other school staff learn to emphasize their own sense of comfort and safety rather than their students' needs.

The problem of censorship does not derive solely from the small anti-intellectual, ultra-moral, or ultra-patriotic groups which will typically function in a society that guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The present concern is rather with the frequency and force of attacks by others, often people of good will and the best intentions, some from within the teaching profession. The National Council of Teachers of English, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the American Library Association, as well as the publishing industry and writers themselves agree: pressures for censorship are great throughout our society.
Where suspicion fills the air and holds scholars in line for fear of their jobs, there can be no exercise of the free intellect. . . . A problem can no longer be pursued with impunity to its edges. Fear stalks the classroom. The teacher is no longer a stimulant to adventurous thinking; she [sic] becomes instead a pipe line for safe and sound information. A deadening dogma takes the place of free inquiry. Instruction tends to become sterile; pursuit of knowledge is discouraged; discussion often leaves off where it should begin.
The material that follows is divided into two sections. The first on "The Right to Read" is addressed to parents and the community at large. The other section, "A Program of Action," lists Council recommendations for establishing professional committees in every school to set up procedures for book selection, to work for community support, and to review complaints against texts.
The Right to Read
-Justice William O. Douglas, United States Supreme Court: Adler v. Board of Education, 1951

An open letter to our country from the National Council of Teachers of English:

The right to read, like all rights guaranteed or implied within our constitutional tradition, can be used wisely or foolishly. In many ways, education is an effort to improve the quality of choices open to all students. But to deny the freedom of choice in fear that it may be unwisely used is to destroy the freedom itself. For this reason, we respect the right of individuals to be selective in their own reading. But for the same reason, we oppose efforts of individuals or groups to limit the freedom of choice of others or to impose their own standards or tastes upon the community at large.

One of the foundations of a democratic society is the individual's right to read, and also the individual's right to freely choose what they would like to read. This right is based on an assumption that the educated possess judgment and understanding and can be trusted with the determination of their own actions. In effect, the reader is freed from the bonds of chance. The reader is not limited by birth, geographic location, or time, since reading allows meeting people, debating philosophies, and experiencing events far beyond the narrow confines of an individual's own existence.

In selecting texts to read by young people, English teachers consider the contribution each work may make to the education of the reader, its aesthetic value, its honesty, its readability for a particular group of students, and its appeal to young children and adolescents. English teachers, however, may use different texts for different purposes. The criteria for choosing a text to be read by an entire class are somewhat different from the criteria for choosing texts to be read by small groups.

For example, a teacher might select John Knowles's A Separate Peace for reading by an entire class, partly because the book has received wide critical recognition, partly because it is relatively short and will keep the attention of many slower readers, and partly because it has proved popular with many students of widely differing skill sets. The same teacher, faced with the responsibility of choosing or recommending books for several small groups of students, might select or recommend books as different as Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Malcolm X's The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, Carlos Bulosan's America Is in the Heart, or Paul Zindel's The Pigman, depending upon the skills and interests of the students in each group.

And the criteria for suggesting books to individuals or for recommending something worth reading for a student who casually stops by after class are different from selecting material for a class or group. As opposed to censoring, the teacher selects texts, and also helps guide students to self-select them. Selection implies that one is free to choose a text, depending upon the purpose to be achieved and the students or class in question, but a book selected this year may be ignored next year, and the reverse. Censorship implies that certain works are not open to selection, this year or any year.

Wallace Stevens once wrote, "Literature is the better part of life. To this it seems inevitably necessary to add / provided life is the better part of literature" (1957). Students and parents have the right to demand that education today keep students in touch with the reality of the world outside the classroom. Many of our best literary works ask questions as valid and significant today as when the literature first appeared, questions like "What is the nature of humanity?" "Why do people praise individuality and practice conformity?" "What do people need for a good life?" and "What is the nature of a good person?" English teachers must be free to employ books, classic or contemporary, which do not hide, or lie to the young, about the perilous but wondrous times we live in, books which talk of the fears, hopes, joys, and frustrations people experience, books about people not only as they are but as they can be. English teachers forced through the pressures of censorship to use only safe or antiseptic works are placed in the morally and intellectually untenable position of lying to their students about the nature and condition of humanity.
The Threat to Education
The teacher must exercise care to select or recommend works for class reading and group discussion. One of the most important responsibilities of the English teacher is developing rapport and respect among students. Respect for the uniqueness and potential of the individual, an important facet of the study of literature, should be emphasized in the English class. One way rapport and respect can be developed is through encouraging the students themselves to explore and engage with texts of their own selection. Also, English classes should reflect the cultural contributions of minoritized groups in the United States, just as they should acquaint students with diverse contributions by the many peoples of the world. Finally, the teacher should be prepared to support and defend their classroom and students' process in selecting and engaging with diverse texts against potential censorship and controversy.

Censorship leaves students with an inadequate and distorted picture of the ideals, values, and problems of their culture. Writers may often represent their culture, or they may stand to the side and describe and evaluate that culture. Yet partly because of censorship or the fear of censorship, many writers are ignored or inadequately represented in the public schools, and many are represented in anthologies not by their best work but by their "safest" or "least offensive" work.

The censorship pressures receiving the greatest publicity are those of small groups who protest the use of a limited number of books with some "objectionable" realistic elements, such as Brave New World, Lord of the Flies, George, The Joy Luck Club, Catch-22, Their Eyes Were Watching God, or A Day No Pigs Would Die. The most obvious and immediate victims are often found among our best and most creative English teachers, those who have ventured outside the narrow boundaries of conventional texts. Ultimately, however, the real victims are the students, denied the freedom to explore ideas and pursue truth wherever and however they wish.
The Community's Responsibility
Great damage may be done by book committees appointed by national or local organizations to pore over anthologies, texts, library books, and paperbacks to find passages which advocate, or seem to advocate, causes or concepts or practices these organizations condemn. As a result, some publishers, sensitive to possible objections, carefully exclude sentences or selections that might conceivably offend some group, somehow, sometime, somewhere.

Individuals who care about the improvement of education are urged to join students, teachers, librarians, administrators, boards of education, and professional and scholarly organizations in support of the students' right to read. Widespread and informed support in and across communities can assure that
A Program of Action

enough residents are interested in the development and maintenance of a rigorous school system to guarantee its achievement;

malicious gossip, ignorant rumors, internet posts, and deceptive letters to the editor will not be circulated without challenge and correction;

news media will observe that the public sincerely desires objective reporting about education, free from slanting or editorial comment which destroys confidence in and support for schools;

the community will not permit its resources and energies to be dissipated in conflicts created by special interest groups striving to advance their ideologies or biases; and

faith in democratic processes will be promoted and maintained.

Censorship in schools is a widespread problem. Teachers of English, librarians, and school administrators can best serve students, literature, and the profession today if they prepare now to face pressures sensibly, demonstrating on the one hand a willingness to consider the merits of any complaint and on the other the courage to defend their literacy program with intelligence and vigor. The Council therefore recommends that schools undertake the following two-step program to protect the students' right to read:
Procedures for Text Selection

establish a diverse committee that is representative of the local school community to consider book selection procedures and to screen complaints; and

promote a community atmosphere in which local residents may be enlisted to support the freedom to read.

Although one may defend the freedom to read without reservation as one of the hallmarks of a free society, there is no substitute for informed, professional, and qualified book selection. English teachers are typically better qualified to choose and recommend texts for their classes than persons not prepared in the field. Nevertheless, administrators have certain legal and professional responsibilities. For these reasons and as a matter of professional courtesy, they should be kept informed about the criteria and the procedures used by English teachers in selecting books and the titles of the texts used.

In each school, the English department should develop its own statement explaining why literature is taught and how books are chosen for each class. This statement should be on file with the administration before any complaints are received. The statement should also support the teacher's right to choose supplementary materials, to build a diverse classroom library, and to discuss controversial issues insofar as they are relevant. In addition, students should be allowed the right to self-select books to read from classroom and school library shelves.

Operating within such a policy, the English department should take the following steps:

1. Establish a committee to support English teachers in finding exciting and challenging texts of potential value to students at a specific school. Schools without departments or small schools with a few English teachers should organize a permanent committee charged with the responsibility of alerting other teachers to new texts just published, or old texts now forgotten which might prove valuable in the literacy program. Students should be encouraged to participate in the greatest degree that their development and skill sets allow.

2. Devote time at each department or grade-level meeting to reviews and comments by the above committee or plan special meetings for this purpose. Free and open discussions on texts of potential value to students would seem both reasonable and normal for any English department. Teachers should be encouraged to challenge any texts recommended or to suggest titles hitherto ignored. Require that each English teacher give a rationale for any text to be read by an entire class. Written rationales for all texts read by an entire class would serve the department well if censorship should strike. A file of rationales should serve as impressive evidence to the administration and the community that English teachers have not chosen their texts lightly or haphazardly.

3. Report to the administration the texts that will be used for class reading by each English teacher.

The Legal Problem
A procedure such as this gives each teacher the right to expect support from fellow teachers and administrators whenever someone objects to a text.

Apart from the professional and moral issues involved in censorship, there are legal matters about which NCTE cannot give advice. The Council is not a legal authority. Across the nation, moreover, conditions vary so much that no one general principle applies. In some states, for example, textbooks are purchased from public funds and supplied free to students; in others, students must rent or buy their own texts.

The legal status of textbook adoption lists also varies. Some lists include only those books which must be taught and allow teachers and sometimes students the freedom to select additional titles; other lists are restrictive, containing the only books which may be required for all students.
Preparing the Community
As a part of sensible preparations for handling attacks on books, each school should ascertain what laws apply to it.

To respond to complaints about texts, every school should have a committee of teachers (and possibly students, parents, and other representatives from the local community) organized to
Defending the Texts

1. inform the community about text selection procedures;

2. enlist the support of residents, possibly by explaining the place of literacy and relevant texts in the educational process or by discussing at meetings of parents and other community groups the texts used at that school; and

3. consider any complaints against any work. No community is so small that it lacks concerned people who care about their children and the educational program of the schools, and will support English teachers in defending books when complaints are received. Unfortunately, English teachers too often are unaware or do not seek out these people and cultivate their goodwill and support before censorship strikes.

Despite the care taken to select worthwhile texts for student reading and the qualifications of teachers selecting and recommending books, occasional objections to a work will undoubtedly be made. All texts are potentially open to criticism in one or more general areas: the treatment of ideologies, of minorities, of gender identities, of love and sex; the use of language not acceptable to some people; the type of illustrations; the private life or political affiliations of the author or the illustrator.

Some attacks are made by groups or individuals frankly hostile to free inquiry and open discussion; others are made by misinformed or misguided people who, acting on emotion or rumor, simply do not understand how the texts are to be used. Others are also made by well-intentioned and conscientious people who fear that harm will come to some segment of the community if a particular text is read or recommended.

What should be done upon receipt of a complaint?

If the complainant telephones, listen courteously and refer them to the teacher involved. That teacher should be the first person to discuss the text with the person objecting to its use.

If the complainant is not satisfied, invite them to file the complaint in writing, but make no commitments, admissions of guilt, or threats.

If the complainant writes, contact the teacher involved and have the teacher call the complainant.

For any of the situations above, the teacher is advised to be aware of local contractual and policy stipulations regarding such situations, and keep a written record of what transpired during the complaint process.

Request for Reconsideration of a Text
An additional option is to contact the NCTE Intellectual Freedom Center to report incidents and seek further resources ( https://www2.ncte.org/resources/ncte-intellectual-freedom-center/).

Author ____________________________________________

Paperback_____ Hardcover _____ Online _____

Title ______________________________________________

Publisher (if known) __________________________________

Website URL (if applicable) ___________________________

Request initiated by __________________________________

Telephone _________________________________________

Address ___________________________________________

City / State / Zip _______________________________________________

Complainant represents
____ (Name of individual) ___________________________
____ (Name of organization) ___________________________

1. Have you been able to discuss this work with the teacher or librarian who ordered it or who used it?
____ Yes ____ No

2. What do you understand to be the general purpose for using this work?

Provide support for a unit in the curriculum?
___ Yes ___ No

Provide a learning experience for the reader in one kind of literature?
___ Yes ___ No

Provide opportunities for students self-selected reading experiences?

___ Yes ___ No

Did the general purpose for the use of the work, as described by the teacher or librarian, seem a suitable one to you?
____Yes ____ No

1. What do you think is the author's general purpose for this book?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

2. In what ways do you think a work of this nature is not suitable for the use the teacher or librarian wishes to carry out?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

3. What have been students' responses to this work?
____ Yes ____ No

If yes, what responses did the students make?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

Have you been able to learn what qualified reviewers or other students have written about this work?
____ Yes ____ No

If yes, what are those responses?
_________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

1. Would you like the teacher or librarian to give you a written summary of what qualified reviewers and other students have written about this book or film?
____ Yes ____ No

2. Do you have negative reviews of the book?
____ Yes ____ No

3. Where were they published?
__________________________________________________________

4. Would you be willing to provide summaries of their views you have collected?
____ Yes ____ No

5. How would you like your library/school to respond to this request for reconsideration?
____ Do not assign/lend it to my child.
____ Return it to the staff selection committee/department for reevaluation.
____ Other-Please explain
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________

6. In its place, what work would you recommend that would convey as valuable a perspective as presented in the challenged text?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________

Signature __________________________________________

Date______________________________________________

At first, the English teacher should politely acknowledge the complaint and explain the established procedures. The success of much censorship depends upon frightening an unprepared school or English department into some precipitous action. A standardized procedure will take the sting from the first outburst of criticism and place the burden of proof on the objector. When the reasonable objector learns that they will be given a fair hearing through following the proper channels, they are more likely to be satisfied. The idle censor, on the other hand, may well be discouraged from taking further action. A number of advantages will be provided by the form, which will

formalize the complaint,

indicate specifically the work in question,

identify the complainant,

suggest how many others support the complaint,

require the complainant to think through objections in order to make an intelligent statement on the text and complaint (1, 2, and 3),

cause the complainant to evaluate the work for other groups than merely the one they first had in mind (4),

establish the familiarity of the complainant with the work (5),

give the complainant an opportunity to consider the criticism about the work and the teacher's purpose in using the work (6, 7, and 8), and

give the complainant an opportunity to suggest alternative actions to be taken on the work (9 and 10).

The committee reviewing complaints should be available on short notice to consider the completed "Request for Reconsideration of a Work" and to call in the complainant and the teacher involved for a conference. Members of the committee should have reevaluated the work in advance of the meeting, and the group should be prepared to explain its findings. Membership of the committee should ordinarily include an administrator, the English department chair, and at least two classroom teachers of English. But the department might consider the advisability of including members from the community and the local or state NCTE affiliate. As a matter of course, recommendations from the committee would be forwarded to the superintendent, who would in turn submit them to the board of education, the legally constituted authority in the school.

Teachers and administrators should recognize that the responsibility for selecting texts for class study lies with classroom teachers and students, and that the responsibility for reevaluating any text begins with the review committee. Both teachers and administrators should refrain from discussing the objection with the complainant, the press, or community groups. Once the complaint has been filed, the authority for handling the situation must ultimately rest with the administration and school board.
References
Freedom of inquiry is essential to education in a democracy. To establish conditions essential for freedom, teachers and administrators need to follow procedures similar to those recommended here. Where schools resist unreasonable pressures, the cases are seldom publicized and students continue to read works as they wish. The community that entrusts students to the care of an English teacher should also trust that teacher to exercise professional judgment in selecting or recommending texts. The English teacher can be free to teach literacy, and students can be free to read whatever they wish only if informed and vigilant groups, within the profession and without, unite in resisting unfair pressures.

Stevens, W. (1957, April). Adagia Part One. Poetry, 41-44.

American Library Association. (2018). Top Ten Most Challenged Books Lists. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10#Before%201990 (Accessed July 15, 2018)

American Library Association. (2018). Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2017: Resources & Graphics. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/NLW-Top10 (Accessed July 15, 2018)

American Library Association (2013, March). Banned & Challenged Classics. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics (Accessed June 15, 2018).

The Committee on the Right to Read of the National Council of Teachers of English:
Statement Authors

Edward R. Gordon, Yale University, New Jersey, Chair

Martin Steinmann, University of Minnesota, Associate Chair

Harold B. Allen, University of Minnesota

Frank A. Doggett, D. U. Fletcher High School, Jacksonville Beach, Florida

Jack Fields, Great Neck South High School, New York

Graham S. Frear, St. Olaf College, Minnesota

Robert Gard, Camelback High School, Phoenix, Arizona

Frank Ross, Detroit Public Schools, Michigan

Warren Taylor, Oberlin College, Ohio

This document was revised by an NCTE working committee comprising the following:

Benjamin "Benji" Chang, Education University of Hong Kong, Chair

Anna Lavergne, Houston Independent School District, Texas

Kim Pinkerton, Texas A&M University, Commerce

Pernille Ripp, Oregon School District, Oregon, Wisconsin

Gabe Silveri, Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District, Houston, Texas

Permission is granted to reproduce in whole or in part the material in this publication, with proper credit to the National Council of Teachers of English. Some schools may wish to modify the statements and arrange separately for printing or duplication. In such cases, of course, it should be made clear that revised statements appear under the authorization and sponsorship of the local school or association, not NCTE.

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#4* Pro and Con: Banned Books (Britannica) SHORTENED 

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© Atlantide Phototravel-Corbis Documentary/Getty Images

To access extended pro and con arguments, sources, and discussion questions about whether parents or other adults should be able to ban books from schools and libraries, go to ProCon.org.

The American Library Association (ALA) has tracked book challenges, which are attempts to remove or restrict materials, since 1990. In 2020, the ALA recorded 156 reported book challenges in the United States, a significant decrease from the 377 reported challenges in 2019 perhaps due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, challenges jumped to an all-time high in 2021 with 729 challenges, containing a total of 1,597 books.

In most years, about 10% of the reported challenges result in removal or ban from the school or library. However, in 2016, five of the top ten most challenged books were removed. The ALA estimates that only about 3% to 18% of challenges are reported to its Office for Intellectual Freedom, meaning that the actual number of attempts to ban books is likely much higher.

In 2021, challenges were most frequently brought by parents (39%), followed by patrons (24%), a board or administration (18%), librarians or teachers (6%), elected officials (2%), and students (1%). Books were most often challenged at school libraries (44%), public libraries (37%), schools (18%), and academic libraries (1%).

Sexually explicit content, offensive language, and "unsuited to any age group" are the top three reasons cited for requesting a book be removed. The percentage of Americans who think any books should be banned increased from 18% in 2011 to 28% in 2015, and 60% of people surveyed believed that children should not have access to books containing explicit language in school libraries, according to The Harris Poll. A 2022 poll found 71% disagreed with efforts to have books removed, including 75% of Democrats, 58% of independents, and 70% of Republicans.

Parents have the right to decide what material their children are exposed to and when.

Children should not be exposed to sex, violence, drug use, or other inappropriate topics in school or public libraries.

Keeping books with inappropriate content out of libraries protects kids, but doesn't stop people from reading those books or prevent authors from writing them.

Parents may control what their own children read, but don't have a right to restrict what books are available to other people.

Many frequently challenged books help people get a better idea of the world and their place in it.

Books are a portal to different life experiences and reading encourages empathy and social-emotional development.

This article was published on August 2, 2022, at Britannica's ProCon.org, a nonpartisan issue-information source.

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Some argue that parents and other adults should have the final say in what children read from schools and libraries because children should not be exposed to certain topics, while others argue that the books available to all children should not be restricted by a few parents who object to world-clarifying topics.

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#4 Banned Books: Top 3 Pros and Cons (Britannica ProCon.org) FULL 

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#4 Banned Books: Top 3 Pros and Cons (Britannica ProCon.org) FULL 

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The American Library Association (ALA) has tracked book challenges, which are attempts to remove or restrict materials, since 1990. In 2020, the ALA recorded 156 reported book challenges in the United States, a significant decrease from the 377 reported challenges in 2019 perhaps due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in 2022 challenges jumped to an all-time high with in 2021 with 729 challenges, containing a total of 1,597 books.

In 2022, attempts to ban books doubled from 2021 with 1,269 attempts to ban 2,571 unique titles, according to the ALA. The numbers also reflect a trend in which one complaint includes challenges for multiple books, whereas in the past most complaints only included one book. As of Aug. 31, 2023, there were 695 book challenges 1,915 unique titles; the ALA notes this is a 20% increase from 2022.

In most years, about 10% of the reported challenges result in removal or ban from the school or library. However, in 2016, five of the top ten most challenged books were removed. The ALA estimates that only about 3% to 18% of challenges are reported to its Office for Intellectual Freedom, meaning that the actual number of attempts to ban books is likely much higher.

In 2021, challenges were most frequently brought by parents (39%), followed by patrons (24%), a board or administration (18%), librarians or teachers (6%), elected officials (2%), and students (1%). Books were most often challenged at school libraries (44%), public libraries (37%), schools (18%), and academic libraries (1%).

Sexually explicit content, offensive language, and "unsuited to any age group" are the top three reasons cited for requesting a book be removed. The percentage of Americans who thought any books should be banned increased from 18% in 2011 to 28% in 2015, and 60% of people surveyed believed that children should not have access to books containing explicit language in school libraries, according to The Harris Poll. A 2022 poll found 71% disagreed with efforts to have books removed, including 75% of Democrats, 58% of independents, and 70% of Republicans.

Should Parents or Other Adults Be Able to Ban Books from Schools and Libraries?

Pro 1

Parents have the right to decide what material their children are exposed to and when.

Having books with adult topics available in libraries limits parents' ability to choose when their children are mature enough to read specific material. "Literary works containing explicit [scenes, as well as] vulgar and obscene language" were on the approved reading list for grades 7-12, according to Speak up for Standards, a group seeking age-appropriate reading materials for students in Dallas, Texas.

If books with inappropriate material are available in libraries, children or teens can be exposed to books their parents wouldn't approve of before the parents even find out what their children are reading.

Bans are necessary because "opting your child out of reading [a certain] book doesn't protect him or her. They are still surrounded by the other students who are going to be saturated with this book," said writer Macey France.
Read More

Pro 2

Children should not be exposed to sex, violence, drug use, or other inappropriate topics in school or public libraries.

Books in the young adult genre often contain adult themes that young people aren't ready to experience. Of the top ten most challenged books in 2020, one had LGBTQ+ content, two were sexually explicit, five dealt with racism and anti-police opinions, and others had profanity and drug use.

According to Jenni White, a former public school science teacher, "Numerous studies on the use of graphic material by students indicate negative psychological effects," including having "more casual sex partners and [beginning] having sex at younger ages."

The American Academy of Pediatrics has found that exposure to violence in media, including in books, can impact kids by making them act aggressively and desensitizing them to violence.

Kim Heinecke, a mother of four, wrote to her local Superintendent of Public Schools that "It is not a matter of 'sheltering' kids. It is a matter of guiding them toward what is best. We are the adults. It is our job to protect them - no matter how unpopular that may seem."
Read More

Pro 3

Keeping books with inappropriate content out of libraries protects kids, but doesn't stop people from reading those books or prevent authors from writing them.

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council noted that removing certain books from libraries is about showing discretion and respecting a community's values, and doesn't prevent people from getting those books elsewhere: "It's an exaggeration to refer to this as book banning. There is nothing preventing books from being written or sold, nothing to prevent parents from buying it or children from reading it."

What some call "book banning," many see as making responsible choices about what books are available in public and school libraries. "Is it censorship that you're unable to go to your local taxpayer-funded branch and check out a copy of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'? For better or for worse, these books are still widely available. Your local community has simply decided that finite public resources are not going to be spent disseminating them," Weekly Standard writer and school board member Mark Hemingway stated.
Read More

Con 1

Parents may control what their own children read, but don't have a right to restrict what books are available to other people.

Parents who don't like specific books can have their kids opt out of an assignment without infringing on the rights of others.

The National Coalition against Censorship explained that "Even books or materials that many find 'objectionable' may have educational value, and the decision about what to use in the classroom should be based on professional judgments and standards, not individual preferences."

In the 1982 Supreme Court ruling on Board of Education v. Pico, Justice William Brennan wrote that taking books off of library shelves could violate students' First Amendment rights, adding that "Local school boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books."
Read More

Con 2

Many frequently challenged books help people get a better idea of the world and their place in it.

Robie H. Harris, author of frequently challenged children's books including It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing up, Sex, and Sexual Health, stated, "I think these books look at the topics, the concerns, the worry, the fascination that kids have today... It's the world in which they're living."

Many books that have long been considered to be required reading to become educated about literature and American history are frequently challenged, such as: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

46 of the Radcliffe Publishing Group's "Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century" are frequently challenged. Banning these books would deprive students of essential cultural and historical knowledge, as well as differing points of view.
Read More

Con 3

Books are a portal to different life experiences and reading encourages empathy and social-emotional development.

One study found that reading J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, which is frequently challenged for religious concerns about witchcraft, "improved attitudes" about immigrants, homosexuals, and refugees.

Another study found that reading narrative fiction helped readers understand their peers and raised social abilities.

A study published in Basic and Applied Social Psychology found that people who read a story about a Muslim woman were less likely to make broad judgments based on race.

Neil Gaiman, author of the frequently challenged novel Neverwhere, among other books, stated that fiction "build[s] empathy... You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going to be slightly changed. Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals."
Read More

Discussion Questions

1. Should parents or other adults be able to ban books from schools or libraries? Why or why not?

2. Have you read any of the Top 10 Challenged Books of 2021 (see the graphic below)? Should those books be banned or restricted? Explain your answers.

3. Is book banning censorship? Why or why not?

Take Action
1. Evaluate the perspective of parents who would like to remove a book from a school library.

2. Consider " 11 Banned Books through Time " at Encyclopaedia Britannica.

3. Explore the American Library Association's resources and efforts against banning books, including the 13 most challenged books of 2022.

4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the "other side of the issue" now helps you better argue your position.

5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives.
Sources

28.

Miranda Mazariegos and Meghan Collins Sullivan, "Efforts to Ban Books Jumped an 'Unprecedented' Four-Fold in 2021, Ala Report Says," npr.org Apr. 4, 2022

29.

American Library Association, "Voters Oppose Book Bans in Libraries," ala.org (accessed Apr. 4, 2022)

30.

American Library Association, "Banned Books: Free Downloads," ala.org (accessed Aug. 2, 2022)

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Banned Books Pros and Cons - Top 3 Arguments For and Against

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Proponents say parents have the right to choose what kids read. Opponents say that right doesn't extend to everyone's children.

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#5 Why are certain school books being banned in US?

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#5 Why are certain school books being banned in US?

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A growing number of US parents are alleging that school books are obscene or otherwise harmful to children. It's creating an increasingly divisive political battle that could spill over into upcoming national elections.

Yael Levin-Sheldon, a mother of two who lives near Richmond, Virginia, recently heard about a book that a teacher in an area school brought into the classroom. She made a note of the title, The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person.

The title alone, Levin says, is racist - and it's not the kind of book that should be available to children in public schools.

"Now think of it saying, 'on being a better black person'," she said. "Would that be ok?

Levin-Sheldon is the Virginia chapter president of the conservative parents-rights group No Left Turn in Education. Her organisation compiles a list of books it says are "used to spread radical and racist ideologies to students" and "divide us as a people for the purpose of indoctrinating kids to a dangerous ideology".

The list includes Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale and White Fragility by Robin Diangelo. The Black Friend, a New York Times best-selling memoir by Frederick Joseph recounting his challenges as a black student in a predominantly white high school, isn't on the list. At least, not yet.

Books such as Joseph's - offering critical views on topics like US history or race - gained new prominence in school curricula and library collections as a response to the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 and educational efforts to address concerns about persistent racism in the US. No Left Turn contends that the works should be taught in context, along with other texts that provide a different (and assumedly more positive) view of America's past. And parents, Levin-Sheldon adds, should have the choice of opting out of those lessons.

Other works, however, particularly ones that touch on human sexuality in explicit detail, should be outright prohibited, the group argues.

"When it comes to pornography and paedophilia," Levin-Sheldon says, "that's when we want those books removed."

This, she adds, is all her group is seeking. It's not too different from what free-speech advocates and educators say they would like, as well - a conversation between parents, teachers and school librarians, balancing moral and educational interests and conducted with the best interests of the children in mind.

In practice, however, it hasn't always worked out that way.

A rising tide of complaints

A state legislator in Texas produced a list of more than 850 books that he contended may cause students to feel "discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress" because of their race or sex. A Dallas Morning News review found 97 of the first 100 books on the list were written by ethnic minorities, women or LGBTQ authors.

A school district in San Antonio pulled 400 of those books from its libraries without any formal review process or specific complaints from parents.

A Tennessee school board removed Maus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its eighth-grade curriculum because of profanity and anthropomorphised mouse nudity.

In Polk County, Florida, a school removed 16 books pending review, including award-winning novels The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Beloved by Toni Morrison, because they contained "obscene material".

Challenges have come from the left, as well. A school district near Seattle, Washington, dropped the 1960 Harper Lee classic To Kill a Mockingbird from its curriculum because of its depiction of race relations and use of racist language.

Characters' use of racist epithets also prompted efforts last year to limit the teaching of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in school districts in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, and Burbank, California.

The American Library Association keeps track of the number of complaints lodged against books in school libraries and has recorded a marked increase over the past year. According to preliminary data, from September through November of 2021 the association tallied 330 incidents. The total number reported for all of 2019, the last year schools across the US were in-person for the entire year, was 377 - suggesting that the final 2021 numbers ultimately will dwarf previous amounts.

The cumulative effect, says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, is significant damage to open discourse and learning across the country.

"We are a government, a society that purports to protect freedom of speech, the freedom to access information to make up our own minds, to engage in a broadly liberal education," she says. "And we're now finding that we have a movement to shut down that conversation, to deny those rights, particularly to young people."

'Covid lemonade'

According to Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the parents group Moms for Liberty, the surge in parental interest can be attributed, at least in part, to the remote learning policies schools implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic. For the first time, they say, many parents had an up-close view of what their children were being taught - and they didn't like it. She calls it "Covid lemonade," because the pandemic had a silver lining.

"We had never really been able to get parents as invigorated as they have been seeing the curriculum up close and personal while they were sitting with their child doing the work," she says. "We saw it as an opportunity to really engage parents even more and to get them involved in their children's education."

Social media has also proved to have a potent effect on the scope of the movement. Activists says it has helped their groups organise across the US, as parents learn that they are not alone in their concern. On the other side, groups like the American Library Association have found the same books identified in complaints turn up again and again, as lists - like the one on the No Left Turn websites - are circulated online.

"Social media is amplifying and driving both the messages of these groups that are pursuing a particular agenda, as well as individual challenges that crop up in a community," Caldwell-Stone says.

At the heart of the issue is a debate over the role of parents, schools and the rights of students in the classroom. Both Levin-Sheldon and Justice point out that until children turn 18 they are minors, and parents should be able to review the ideas and subject matters to which their children are exposed - even if that's not supervision all parents want to exercise at home or in the classroom.

Free-speech proponents counter that libraries are meant to serve an entire community of students, not just the ones with the most prudish parents. And although students are not adults, they still have rights - and agency. A dialogue between parents, teachers and librarians is important, but if teenagers seek out information on a topic of interest, they should have access to it.

"There's this notion that young people are in search of the most illicit material in every area of their lives, all the time," says Jonathan Friedman, director of Free Expression and Education at PEN America, an author's free-speech group. "I don't think that's true. I think people go to a library there's usually an alignment between reader and text."

The politics of anger

As the push to pass judgement on - and remove - certain books from schools has become a national drive with national attention from conservative and liberal media, tempers have become increasingly frayed.

A school board meeting in Flagler County, Florida, to discuss the removal of the book All Boys Aren't Blue devolved into obscenity-laced protests and counter-protests. (The board's decision to approve the book's use was ultimately overruled by a county official).

Meetings in other parts of the US have had to be cancelled or delayed because of threats against public officials. During a school board meeting in Carmel, Indiana, last July, where parents were taking turns reading out explicit passages from books that they believed should be removed from their school library, a man was arrested after a handgun fell out of his pocket.

Levin is quick to note that her group does not approve of such parental conduct and they seek to train their members to behave "respectfully and professional" at school board meetings. Justice agrees, calling her members "joyful warriors", but adds that parents have reason to be angry.

"Yeah, they're upset," she says. "Their kids aren't learning in school. They're sending their kids to school and their kids are learning more about - who knows? Not reading and writing."

Anger can be a potent force in politics, and conservative politicians - and Republican-dominated legislatures - have sought to harness the passion.

Last November, Republican Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia governorship by campaigning on education and parental rights. One of his television adverts featured a mother who objected to Morrison's Beloved being taught in her son's high-school English class.

As November's mid-term elections approach, with control of the US Congress and many state governments at stake, more candidates on the right are following suit.

Matt Krause, the Texas legislator with the 850-book list, is running for state attorney general. On Tuesday, the Indiana state Senate approved a bill that would allow the criminal prosecution of school librarians for disseminating "material harmful to minors". The Oklahoma legislature is considering a bill that would ban public school libraries from offering any books on sexuality or gender identity.

Friedman warns that efforts to remove books will have an adverse impact on librarians and school officials, who could engage in "soft censorship" by pre-emptively pulling titles they worry could spark controversy. It could also have a chilling effect on authors and publishers, who might shy away from controversial topics and stifle their creativity.

"If you are telling a story that's on the borderline of any of these issues right now, you're going to think twice about writing in a way that might get banned or draw national attention," he says. "You're not going to publish that book; you're not going to give that talk publicly about it."

Ashley Hope Perez is one of those authors feeling the pressure. In a recent issue of Texas Monthly, she describes how she was harassed after her book Out of Darkness was criticised as being obscene in meeting of a school board near Austin.

"Ugly phone messages calling me a 'degenerate piece of -', emails that were little more than expletives strung together, social media comments saying I was 'literally SATAN' and suggestions that I hang myself," she writes. "The attacks on Out of Darkness say far more about our cultural moment than they do about my book."

She notes that her book was first published six years ago with little controversy. The political ground, it seems, has shifted significantly since then.

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Why are certain school books being banned in US?

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A growing number of US parents are alleging that school books are obscene or otherwise harmful to children. It's creating an increasingly divisive political battle that could spill over into upcoming national elections. Yael Levin-Sheldon, a mother of two who lives near Richmond, Virginia, recently heard about a book that a teacher in an area school brought into the classroom.

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#6 Why Children's Books Should be a Little Sad

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#6 Why Children's Books Should be a Little Sad

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Why Children's Books Should Be a Little Sad

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In her response to Matt de la Peña: "I think our job is to trust our readers. I think our job is to see and to let ourselves be seen."

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#7 Why We Shouldn't Shield Children From Darkness

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#7 Why We Shouldn't Shield Children From Darkness

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'Why We Shouldn't Shield Children From Darkness'

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Maybe instead of anxiously trying to protect our children from every little hurt, our job is to simply support them through such experiences

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# 8 "Thirteen Reasons" An Interview with an author

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# 8 "Thirteen Reasons" An Interview with an author

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.