Readers,

 

I didn’t have to struggle much this month to come up with a topic for this column. I already knew what I wanted to talk about — the recent rash of book bans, censorship attempts, and proposed legislation in the news that should have all thinking people very afraid. 

 

But I want to make the differentiation between a book being actually banned, and a situation where a school decides that a particular book is not appropriate for curriculum at a certain grade level. This seems to me well within educators’ expertise, and nothing to blow out of proportion as has been done by media outrage about the removal of Maus by Art Spiegelman from one school’s assigned reading. And I have to admit, I was one who was RILED UP until I heard the full story, because this book is so powerful. 

 

But that kind of overreaction hurts our message, which boils down to what the PUBLIC LIBRARY is at our core. We serve all. We stand ready to provide students with any supplementary materials that they need or want, and it’s between them and a parent what is age-appropriate, not some outsider with an agenda. And we plan to continue the fight so that no one takes away that essential role in an educated society. So we can find you a copy of Maus. Read it. Whatever you think you know of the Holocaust will be magnified by seeing it depicted by mice and cats, and indelibly seared on your heart. Ironically, because of the recent brouhaha, you’ll be on hold for a bit! 

 

At a whole other level is the kind of request made of public libraries, ours sometimes included, that because something offends *me,* it should be removed so that *no one* has access to it. That mentality we will rigorously battle, and I assure you we have strong Board support in that effort. And we try to preach on this topic when given a pulpit, such as a lesson put together by Belloni Branch Manager Patty McGrath based on Andy Lee’s hilarious Do Not Open this Book. Mrs. McGrath couples it with a discussion of how a public library differs from a school library, that even the youngest kiddo can grasp. (I love our creative staff!) 

 

But most concerning right now is a coordinated effort to enact legislation at state levels to make it a crime to offer books or even research databases not deemed (by whom?) “appropriate.” Most laws are aimed at schools, of course. But there’s at least one proposed bill that could criminalize what public libraries EXIST to do — providing access to ideas. If you want to send a shudder up your spine, see them all in one list: https://www.everylibrary.org/2022_legislative_attacks. 

 

As author Madeline L’Engle famously said, “The first people a dictator puts in jail after a coup are the writers, the teachers, the librarians — because these people are dangerous. They have enough vocabulary to recognize injustice and to speak out loudly about it.” If you want to join us in being dangerous, keep learning more about this issue and speak up loudly! 

 

Sherie Brown
Director

 

Download the entire March newsletter.