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Banning Books Could Lead to Defunding Libraries 

SHE LIT: Banning Books Could Lead to Defunding Libraries 📖

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Photo by Element5 Digital: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-book-from-shelf-1370298/

Public libraries becoming targets for collections that include LGBTQ+ books

A rural Michigan town defunding its library over books featuring LGBTQ+ themes is the next level of book bans.

Book bans are at their highest level, according to the American Library Association that marks Banned Books Week every year this month. From Sept. 18-24, we will mark a year where more than ever school districts are voting to remove books from campus libraries, lawsuits are being waged to remove books from public libraries and bookstores, and now those public libraries could lose community funding over a particular book.

Patmos Library in Hudsonville, Michigan, was facing closure in early August after voters rejected a measure to renew funding for the library. The vote was blamed on a campaign waged by conservative Christians who believe books associated with LGBTQ+ themes are “grooming” children to be pedophiles, a QAnon belief that has become a mainstream conservative theory, according to media reports.

Less than 1% of Patmos Library’s books have LGBTQ+ content, the nonprofit advocacy group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State found. Yet the library was defunded.

Most book bans seem to occur within school libraries since parents have more power to address their school districts to remove books they deem inappropriate for children to read. Of course, many of these books being targeted are by LGBTQ+ authors and authors of color who write about gender, sexuality, and race.

But more of these book bans are trickling inside public libraries where individuals are heading to their city councils and court systems to request books be removed from libraries and even bookstores.

A concerned Patmos Library patron started a GoFundMe that now has raised over $255,000, which is $10,000 over the goal to help the library continue operations throughout 2023. Renowned romance novelist Nora Roberts noticed the GoFundMe after reading The Washington Post story about the library’s defunding and donated $50,000, her publicist’s blog notes. The funds are from the author personally, and not from her foundation, the blog adds.

Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer: A Memoir is one of the books at issue. It’s also the most banned book in America. The author and cartoonist, who uses e/eir pronouns, discusses eir discovery of eir gender identity in the graphic novel. The book was also at the center of an obscenity matter in a Virginia court that is resolved for now (more on that below).

Though Patmos Library is located in a community with a population of just less than 10,000, the possibility that a library can be defunded over the books they choose to carry is concerning. The head librarian, who identified as queer, quit amid the defunding campaign after being harassed inside the library, BuzzFeed News reports, adding other librarians had also quit for similar reasons.

Now that the library received national support to keep going, hardships still lie ahead. The harassment may continue toward the librarians, another campaign to somehow rid the library of LGBTQ+ books may be planned, or people may stop using the library.

The library’s next board meeting takes place Sept. 12, so we will see what the library has in store under the spotlight glow. Though the money will be there, its location in a community that largely wants it gone over a few books is an ongoing concern.

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Virginia court dismisses request to label books as obscene

The American Civil Liberties Union announced that its clients were victorious in getting an obscenity lawsuit against two books dismissed. The Circuit Court for the City of Virginia Beach rejected an effort to label Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas as obscene and illegal to sell and lend in the state.

The ACLU and the ACLU of Virginia represented local booksellers and book organizations. Barnes & Noble was the largest target of the lawsuit. Gender Queer was the most banned book in the U.S. last year, according to the American Library Association, one of the ACLU’s clients. Legal experts believe this is just the beginning for these types of lawsuits.

Prolific YA author shares new middle grade book, film trailer

Angie Thomas, the creator of The Hate U Give, has been quite busy this week. She introduced her upcoming The Manifestor Prophecy middle grade trilogy with the first book Nic Blake and the Remarkables. In an Instagram post, she writes the roots of the book were inside her for 15 years and the story has “hellhound puppies and haints and a literal Underground Railroad. It has Black Girl Magic.” The first installment is expected to be released April 4, 2023 from HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray.

During last Sunday’s presentation of the MTV Video Music Awards, the full trailer debuted for On the Come Up, Angie’s sophomore hip-hop-infused YA novel. Directed by actress Sanaa Lathan, the film stars Jamila Gray as Bri, the prodigal daughter of a late hip-hop legend trying to find her voice in music and at school. The film will start streaming on Paramount+ on Sept. 23.

While sharing the news of her projects via social media, she also shared her concerns as a Jackson, Mississippi, native seeing the current water crisis impacting the city of 150,000 unfold. Damaged infrastructure has caused the Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves to declare a state of emergency over residents—more than 80% who are Black—having little to no water pressure.

Reese Witherspoon adds kids’ author to her bookish titles

Book club queen and book-to-screen producer Reese Witherspoon announced the upcoming release for her new children’s picture book, Busy Betty, about a girl on a mission to bathe her dog before her friends come over to play. Her book launch will take place at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville. Illustrated by Xindi Yan, the book is published by Flamingo Books under Penguin Random House and will be available for sale on Oct. 4.

Michelle Buteau’s memoir-based comedy series starts casting

Comedienne and The Circle host Michelle Buteau’s book is getting the screen treatment. Her 2020 essay collection, Survival of the Thickest, will be turned into a Netflix comedy series of the same name starring the author in a fictionalized storyline. Her character will be a plus-size, single, Black woman who is struggling as a stylist but “determined to not only survive but thrive with the support of her chosen family, a body positive attitude, and a cute v-neck with some lip gloss,” according to Deadline. Tone Bell and Tasha Smith will also star.

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"The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School" by Sonora Reyes

Book Review: The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes

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LGBTQIA+ Books Are More Banned Than Ever

LGBTQIA+ Books Are More Banned Than Ever

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View the original newsletter sent June 10, 2022

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June is Pride Month! Join the #shelitbookclub with reading the recently banned young adult novel Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera 🏳️•

Why banned books are disappearing from library shelves

The most banned book in the United States right now is Maia Kobabe’s memoir Gender Queer. Maia, who uses the pronouns e/em/eir, illustrates eir experience growing up in rural San Francisco Bay Area in a graphic book where e undergoes traditional gendered events from getting eir first bra to developing crushes on boys and girls.

Published by Simon & Schuster’s Oni Press in 2019, the author’s autobiographical coming-of-age story held the top spot on the most banned and challenged books list compiled by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. The group says the book has been “banned, challenged, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, and because it was considered to have sexually explicit images.”

Most books are banned from libraries and schools without much media fanfare, as in up to 97% of these books that are challenged will never be covered by the news. That means Americans, especially children, may never know why they can’t find a particular book at their local library.

Banned books have become a priority over the last few years since many of these works are by LGBTQIA+ authors as well as authors of color describing racial, ethnic, and cultural experiences like The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas being famously banned and challenged for allegedly promoting an “anti-police message and indoctrination of a social agenda,” the ALA’s list notes.

I recently attended Books in Bloom, a so-called progressive book festival in Maryland, which celebrated banned books this year by adding panels with authors and experts discussing freedom of speech, including Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin and literary civil rights group PEN America. The partner indie bookstore Busboys and Poets mostly sold banned books, such as Gender Queer.

More people are taking action to support the sales of these books. Students are starting banned book clubs in their high schools. They’re even filing lawsuits against their schools for removing books. In retaliation of the increase in book censorship, Margaret Atwood modeled with a flamethrower to show off a fireproof version of her 1985 Hulu-adapted novel The Handmaid’s Tale. The book was auctioned off for $130,000 this week with proceeds going to PEN America.

As 2022 becomes a year of giving banned and challenged books a spotlight, the annual Banned Books Week will take place in September. That’s three months of really surveying the impact of banned and challenged books and hearing more authors speak about the freedom of speech. And maybe we’ll get more fireproof books…

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June book club picks promise addictive summer reads

Oprah’s Book Club has chosen Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley. The debut novel centers on a young woman in Oakland who starts working on the streets at night to keep up with rising rent and the costs to support her family. But when she gets picked up by the police one night, she finds herself fighting to protect her freedom. The 19-year-old author, who’s also the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate, will sit down with Oprah in a livestream conversation June 30 on Oprah Daily.

Reese’s Book Club is reading Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen. Jenna’s Book Club is reading These Impossible Things by Salma El-Wardany. GMA Book Club is reading More Than You’ll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez. Noname Book Club is reading The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

Best-selling memoirist gets spotlight in food docuseries

Coming off of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, you can catch the HBO Max docuseries Take Out with Lisa Ling about the stories of how Asian communities weaved their cuisines into the fabric of America. One episode follows Michelle Zauner aka indie recording artist Japanese Breakfast as she ventures the aisles of the Korean grocery chain H Mart and talks about her award-winning book Crying in H Mart

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What’s lit around the web

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LeVar Burton Calls ‘Bulls- -t’ on Recent School Book Bans: ‘It’s Embarrassing’

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Book Festivals Highlight Diverse Works Amid Banned Books Movement

Two book festivals in Maryland have kick-started the summer off in a year when literary diversity is under attack in the form of book bans.

Books in Bloom and Gaithersburg Book Festival held family-friendly community events that featured a number of authors who either identify on the diversity spectrum or are passionate about freedom of speech in literature. Over the last year, more parents nationwide are asking school libraries to take books off shelves they deem inappropriate for their children to read while some libraries are reactively subtracting books to avoid controversy.

This movement of banning books is sparking opposition as authors and readers alike are going out of their way to support not only freedom of speech but support the variety of books meant to be read by children. The political divide was felt at these book festivals and may become a theme for other similar events in the U.S. throughout the year.

Banned books gain spotlight

Books in Bloom calls itself a progressive book festival in the master-planned city of Columbia, Maryland. To show support for banned books, the festival dedicated one of its soundstages to authors who discussed freedom of speech.

A vibrant setting in Merriweather District’s Color Burst Park, the book festival had a giant book-shaped display describing some of the top banned books in history from Toni Morrison‘s Beloved and Song of Solomon to Alice Walker‘s The Color Purple. With Busboys and Poets as the independent bookstore for the event and a location in the park, most books for sale were books by authors who are Black and/or LGBTQIA+.

Queer memoirs All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson and Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe had notable stacks on the tables with other titles that have become the face of many bans though they were created for the middle grade and young adult audiences. The bans are usually due to racial and cultural content, sexually explicit content, and offensive language.

Headliners included a panel with PEN America, the nonprofit organization advocating in the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland’s 8th congressional district and author of Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy. Raskin also attended Gaithersburg Book Festival to sell and sign his latest book.

The book festival’s keynote speaker was Carl Bernstein, the well-known The Washington Post reporter who co-headed the news coverage on the Watergate scandal in 1972. On the festival’s main stage, he marveled at his time growing up around Columbia and how he first became a cub reporter as a high school dropout in his new memoir, Chasing History: A Kid In The Newsroom.

The last Books in Bloom was held less than a year ago in-person in October with The New York Times reporter and The 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones serving as the keynote speaker.

Diverse works lead way

Reminiscent of a large outdoor book festival such as Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Gaithersburg Book Festival in Gaithersburg, Maryland marked its 12th year as an event supporting the greater community with inviting traditionally published authors and offering seminars on book publishing and creative writing for children and adults.

Authors such Dhonielle Clayton, who has a new middle grade release with The Marvellers, and Kimberly Jones, who is promoting her social justice young adult novel Why We Fly with co-author Gilly Segal, discussed their works at the annual event. Dhonielle, a Gaithersburg native, and Kimberly are some of the top YA Black authors who have been outspoken about diversity in literature and social justice matters.

Asked about some of her summer read recommendations, Dhonielle mentioned Valentina Salazar Is Not a Monster Hunter by Zoraida Córdova; the Track series by Jason Reynolds; and The Devouring Wolf by Natalie C. Parker, in which Dhonielle says there’s a wolf character named after her.

Another author at the event was Jeanine Cummins, who gained notoriety with her immigration novel American Dirt, interviewing Reyna Grande about her book A Ballad of Love and Glory. American Dirt follows a Mexican woman trying to escape to the U.S. with her young son after her family is murdered.

Some high-profile Hispanic and Latine authors spoke out about the White Latina author’s seven-figure advance because they said the publishing industry would never offer them such a sum for centering stories on Hispanic and Latine characters. They also claimed the book had inaccuracies in the culture and language that wasn’t native to the author. On the other hand, there were Hispanic and Latine authors and celebrities who supported the Oprah’s Book Club selection.

Since American Dirt came out in 2020, Jeanine, like many authors who had released their works at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, now have the chance to work the promotion circuit in-person.

Social justice and historical nonfiction were the focus of many authors’ works at the book festival. Gayle Jessup White talked about her lineage connected to former slave-holding president Thomas Jefferson in her book Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant’s Search for Her Lasting Legacy. Kristin Henning shared her experience representing Black youth in the D.C. court system and how she conceived the idea for her book The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth.

Along with Raskin, Democratic U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff for California’s 28th congressional district visited the event to chat about his book Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could.

D.C. area indie bookstore chain Politics and Prose served as the event bookseller.

The pre-summer book festivals helped usher in the first literary events for authors and readers to enjoy as society emerges out of the pandemic and the world of book publishing remains volatile in the wake of book bans.