Out of Darkness: Why books are banned in schools and how it affects children, young people and their families – the most tragic event in our country is 2021
But book banning harms students, and their education, the most. Young people use school libraries for accurate information, for stories that broaden their understanding, for hope and community, as well as speaking honestly to challenges they face. Teens notice that some books are under attack in libraries. Sharing identities with targeted authors or characters leads to a message of exclusion: these books don’t belong.
I have been a professional for over a decade. I spent my days teaching college literature courses and writing novels. When I was an author I visited schools and got to meet students who inspired me to write in the first place.
I was the subject of attacks, not just for my writing but also for young people’s right to read it. Hate mail and threats overwhelmed the inboxes where I once had received invitations for author visits and appreciative notes from readers. At the beginning of 2021, Out of Darkness had been on library shelves for over five years without a single challenge or complaint. It has been banned in at least 29 school districts across the country.
I imagined the explosion to be the most devastating event in the novel. I had to wrestle with prejudice, abuse and racism in order to engage honestly with the realities of my characters’ lives. As I wrote, the teenagers’ circumstances began to tighten, noose-like, around their lives and love, leading to still more tragedy. I wanted to show the damage done to some in this country, without sensationalizing it. The characters in the book portray friendship, family, community and healthy relationships because they’re part of their world. Then, as now, young people struggle mightily for joy, love and dignity.
Is It Too Late? Why Books Are Banned in the U.S. and Why We Shouldn’t Read It: The Powers of Soft Censorship
So it went until early 2021. In the wake of the 2020 presidential elections, right-wing groups pivoted from a national defeat to “local” issues. The latest wave of book banning exceeds anything ever documented by librarian or free-speech groups. The increases in challenges and removals are reflected in the statistics, with an increase of more than 600% in 2020. For a continually updated database of challenges and bans, visit Everylibrary.org, while the PEN America’s Banned in the USA reports can be found on the website.
If your kid identifies with the bad guy in a book and you don’t do your job as a parent, you have not done your job. There, I said it. This was initially going to be my last. I’ve decided to start here. And here’s why: When you think of the books that have been banned over the last few years, most are by or about people of color or the LGBTQ+ community. And in many of these stories, as with my books New Kid and Class Act, the protagonists are the targets of bullying.
Debates about the suitability of reading materials in school are nothing new. These include past efforts by progressives to reorient language arts instruction. Concerns about the portrayal of race might lead communities to look for alternatives to works such as The ADVENTURES OF CHUF Finn. But de-emphasizing problematic classics does not generally entail removing the books from library collections. Conservative book banners seek to restrict what individual students may choose to read on their own, ignoring the judgement of school librarians who carefully select materials according to professional standards.
These “wins” happen even without official bans. Formal censorship becomes unnecessary once bullying, threats and disruption shake educators’ focus from students. The result is soft censorship. For example, a librarian reads an outstanding review of a book that would serve someone in their school, but they don’t order it out of fear of controversy. This is the internalization of the banners’ agenda. The effects of soft censorship are pervasive, pernicious and very difficult to document.
Ashley Hope Pérez: Connecting New Kid and “Avatar” to Movies: How Children Learn to Stop Worrying about Our Lives
Ashley Hope Pérez, author of three novels for young adults, is a former high school English teacher and an assistant professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University. Find her on Twitter and Instagram or LinkT.
A 13-year-old girl who identifies as being white with disabilities sent me an email, not mine. She used the time she was here to tell me that she related to the characters in New Kid and that the book helped her cope with being different at school. The parents and politicians who fight to ban books like mine will never entertain the idea that our books help kids who feel like outsiders see that they are not alone. They will not see the love and humor that we pour into our pages.
Think of movies that we watched when we were younger, such as “Avatar”, and “Shrek”. Humans are the bad guys most of the time in these movies. We all enjoyed watching the Aliens, the troll, and the extraterrestrial characters scare us in real life. But there are no protests from parents who claim that these movies make their kids feel guilty to be human.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/28/1144950726/author-jerry-craft-on-new-kid-book-banning
Anger mob mentality in a middle-grade book for teaching critical race theory and racial sexism revisited
Instead, they invent things that never actually happen in some of the books that they work so hard to ban. Even though they couldn’t tell if Marxism was based on the writings of Karl or Groucho, they still threw out the term. I don’t think anyone who dislikes a middle- grade book for teaching critical race theory knows what they are talking about. I know that I certainly didn’t know about CRT when I was accused of teaching it through my book. This anger mob mentality will create more authors who feel like they need to write their own stories, only for their books to be banned as a result.