Hello book lovers, book defenders, book warriors, and book banning fighters!
This week, to draw attention to Banned Books Week and to stand in solidarity with publishers, authors, and all industry professionals who fight to keep diverse voices on library shelves, Write-minded features guest Amanda Jones, an educator and librarian whose book, That Librarian, is necessary reading. Amanda shares her more than two-year journey of being bullied, harassed, and smeared because she dared to stand up for diverse books and diverse voices. The phenomenon of canceling librarians or get them fired is not singular, and Amanda Jones’s story serves as a stark reminder about what’s at stake in our country right now. She draws attention to efforts to defund libraries and shares why representation in literature matters so much. Listen and take action. And check out Grant’s Substack about another kind of banning—banning the story we want to tell—in this week’s Substackin’.
Actions to take for Banned Books Week from the American Library Association:
Stay informed. If you hear of a challenge at your local library, support your librarian and free and open access to library materials by contacting the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF). OIF estimates it learns of only 3-18% of book challenges. Find out your library's policy for reviewing challenged materials. Stay updated about intellectual freedom by signing up for the free Intellectual Freedom News newsletter, or reading the Journal for Intellectual Freedom and Privacy.
Attend a Banned Books Week program. ALA will offer several free, virtual programs (for some, registration is required) to inspire and inform. Events will feature honorary chairs Ava DuVernay and Julia Garnett, as well as bestselling authors like Eliot Schrefer (Queer Ducks (and Other Animals)), Patricia McCormick (Sold), Christina Soontornvat (The Squad (The Tryout #2)), Maulik Pancholy (30 Rock), and more! See a schedule of events on the Banned Books Week calendar.
Encourage people to take at least one action on September 28. On Let Freedom Read Day, we’re asking everyone to get ready to vote for the freedom to read or to take at least one action to help defend books from censorship and to stand up for the library staff, educators, writers, publishers, and booksellers who make them available! Show us how you’re taking action on social media by using the hashtags #LetFreedomReadDay and #BannedBooksWeek!
Write a letter to a favorite banned or challenged author. Take some time to thank a banned or challenged author for their words. Author addresses and Twitter handles can be found on the Dear Banned Author page.
Submit content that address censorship and banned books to the Intellectual Freedom Blog. Posts can be news items, reviews and listicals.
Write a letter to the editor. Edit and adapt this “Read a Banned Book” opinion column for your local newspaper. Include local Banned Books Week programs so your community can support their right to read.
Brush up on banned book history. The latest edition of Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read contains an annotated list of challenged and banned books, as well as the history of literary censorship.
Speak out. Announce the importance of unrestricted reading on your local public radio station with a PSA script. Write letters to the editor, your public library director and your school principal supporting the freedom to read. Talk to your friends about why everyone should be allowed to choose for themselves and their families what they read.
Exercise your reading rights. Check out a banned book. Encourage your book club to discuss rebellious reads.
Support Banned Books Week with a $25, $50, $100, or $250 donation.
For more information and action items check out the full list here!
Partial transcript from the show
Grant: I’m Grant Faulkner and I’m here with my co-host Brooke Warner, and today we’re doing a show that’s unfortunate, unfortunate because it’s about fighting to keep books on the shelves and available to readers, unfortunate because we’re going to hear a harrowing story about how a librarian, Amanda Jones, was called a groomer, a pedo, and a porn-pusher and faced death threats and attacks from strangers and friends alike, just for wanting to do her job, which was creating an inclusive environment and making LGTBQ+ books available in her library, and unfortunate because the number of books that are banned or threatened to be banned are on the rise each year. You know, Brooke, I often make the point that when I need to feel some optimism in the world and know we’re making progress, I think of the books that were available in bookstores 100 years ago, and 100 years ago, probably 99 percent of those books were literally by white men, whereas today, the books in your average Barnes & Noble obviously contain a multitude of experiences by writers of color and LGTBQ+ authors, and even though we have a long way to go, our stories reflect how we are more expansive and more attuned to difference voices and experiences than we were 100 years ago. But I sometimes forget that there is also a counter narrative to all of this, that many are fighting to take those books off the shelf, and they’re doing so in vicious ways. I grew up thinking that being a librarian was a safe, quiet profession, but it’s anything but that these days.
Brooke: I remember when I first heard about stories like Amanda’s—stories not just about books being called into question and banned, but the outright attack on librarians as a fear tactic— I was so beyond appalled. I still am, of course, but that this is commonplace is such an indictment on our country. Across the nation, school and public librarians are being targeted, as are the books on their shelves. It’s important to remember the origins of this fight as well—it’s very specific kinds of books that are being called into question: According to the American Library Association, “Pro-censors challenged 2,571 books in 2022. . . . Of those titles, the vast majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community or by and about Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color.” This isn’t a coincidence, Grant: it’s an attempt to take books back 100 years to that bookstore full of white male authors you mentioned.
Grant: In her book, That Librarian, Amanda mentioned how much she identified with The Handmaid’s Tale, and I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard that from women in the past 10 years—for good reasons, obviously. She even points out an interesting irony—that if more people read The Handmaid’s Tale, more people would be against book banning. So that’s one reason to keep these books on the shelves, because without them, we narrow as a culture and people literally lose their power and freedoms. So the fight against banned books isn’t just to keep books on the shelves, it’s a fight for librarians as well, to allow them to do their job and curate collections that expand us. It’s a fight for an entire reading ecosystem, to keep it inclusive and welcoming. And it’s a fight for our very essence as human beings, right? People need to see themselves represented in books, and we need to see the world through others’ eyes. I say this because those of us who live in places where book banning isn’t an issue need to see it as part of our larger ecosystem. As you know, I grew up in a community not too dissimilar from Amanda’s, and I needed books to take me to other places, to see other worlds, so banning books is a way to keep people down, to tell them their story doesn’t matter and to make sure it doesn’t matter.
Brooke: I’m alarmed by the nature of the book banning discussion, if we want to dignify it with the word “discussion,” because it’s often about fear mongering and bullying. Amanda woke up one day to find a message on Facebook, posted by a local resident, accusing her of “advocating teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds.” Of course that wasn’t the case, and, as Amanda points out, if there is a book that people find objectionable, every library has a system for community members to challenge a book, which triggers an objective review process. However, rather than use that process, people in Amanda’s community would do things like photograph one page of, say, a sexual health text written for teenagers— shelved in the young adult section—and post it on social media to frighten others into calling for the book’s removal. The aim of book banners is to create an environment of fear and hostility. Librarians are trained to curate collections that reflect a range of political views and subjects, but many have quit their jobs after being harassed for opposing book bans, or have been fired after refusing to remove books. Some have been reported to the police by community members who accuse them of peddling pornography just like Amanda.
Grant: That’s why a story like Amanda’s is so important: when she was attacked, she decided to stand up for herself and stand up for books, and she’s still fighting back. That’s not easy to do in a small town in Louisiana. She feels like a pariah now, and she feels her life is in danger. Since this is Banned Books Week, I think we all need to step back and do something. Buy a banned book at minimum, but it’s more than that. This is about freedom and the freedom of expression, so we need to put our own fight in motion.
Brooke: We’ll put some resources in the show notes, but during our short break, think of doing one of these four things:
Donate to the LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund, which supports library workers who are threatened for defending intellectual freedom.
Join a banned book club. You can start your own banned book club or join a teen banned book club online.
Get involved with Banned Books Week. Attend a Banned Books Week program, organize your own, or proclaim Banned Books Week at your local library.
Join the Freedom to Read Foundation.
We’ll be right back!
This week’s Substackin’:
Substackin’ this week explores a post Grant wrote last year on self-rejection. It's so common for people to tell me they’re not a real writer, and I can relate, because it took me a long time to own that I was a writer. I used to qualify it, even after I’d published a couple books, saying, I’ve published two books, BUT they’re books about writing. I was diminishing myself by qualifying it like this and it took me a long time to come around.
However, my definition of a real writer is someone who shows up and writes. It’s not about having a degree. It’s not about having a published book. If you are struggling with claiming your identity as a real writer, know that it does just take time. I encourage you to write a social media post that claims it—I am a writer, and share something about your writing. I also think owning it and getting more comfortable with the identity of it makes you feel better—because there’s a sense of belonging and community that comes along with it, once you take your place, or take up that space.
Read Grant's full Substack post linked here.
ABOUT AMANDA JONES
Amanda Jones is a 23 year educator: she’s a former 7th and 8th grade English Language Arts teacher and she is a certified K-12 librarian, certified 1-8 elementary teacher, certified school administrator, and certified reading specialist. She is the current President of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians and her library was the winner of the 2019 LLA James O Modisette Award for top middle school library programming in Louisiana. She is also the author of a riveting, harrowing, and necessary memoir, That Librarian.