While LGTBQ+ themed book challenges and bans are nothing new, there is in 2022 an alarmingly high demand by individuals and groups across the United States to ban children's and teenager's access to these books.
Below are some of the books that are currently most commonly challenged, calling for public and K-12 school library bans. The books listed below are held in the TCC Library. Check one out today!
"Nate's whole life, he's wanted to star in a Broadway show. But how is Nate supposed to make his dreams come true when he's stuck in Jankburg, Pennsylvania, where no one (except his best pal Libby) appreciates a good show tune?"
rational for challenge/ban: inclusion of coming of age sexual identity storyline
" "Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Portraits, family photographs, and candid images grace the pages, augmenting the emotional and physical journey each youth has taken."
Rationale for challenge/ban: inclusion of lesbian coming-of-age and a gay father character
rationale for challenging/ban: Transgender main character
Callie loves theater. And while she would totally try out for her middle school's production of Moon over Mississippi, she can't really sing. Instead she's the set designer for the drama department's stage crew, and this year she's determined to create a set worthy of Broadway on a middle-school budget...
Below, you will find the ALA's word cloud representation of rationales that have been cited by individuals and organizations who have challenged books. (Word clouds are generated by the number of times a word or phrase has been recorded, where the prominence of the word or phrase correlates with the number of times it has been used.)
Note that although book challenge rationales are often a reflection of ideologies generally associated with politically or socially conservation viewpoints, there are plenty of challenges that reflect other viewpoints across the political and social spectrum.
Note the changes in these word clouds over time. What do you notice? What rationales grow over time? Which recede? Which ones appear or disappear altogether? What events or social changes do you know about that have influenced the reasons people give for seeking a book ban or challenge?
For the time that ALA has been creating word clouds of the reasons, 2014 to current, we can see visually that reasons change over time. Book challenges are a snap-shot of our current cultural, social, and political fears. Note for 2020 that objections to content that promotes Black Lives Matter makes its first appearance. (Unfortunately this word cloud was not available from ALA for 2022.)
(click on images to enlarge)
(click on images to enlarge)
For the time that ALA has been creating word clouds of the reasons, 2014 to current, we can see visually that reasons change over time. Book challenges are a snap-shot of our current cultural, social, and political fears.
(click on images to enlarge)
For the time that ALA has been creating word clouds of the reasons, we can see visually that reasons change over time. Book challenges are a snap-shot of our current cultural, social, and political fears.
(click on image to enlarge)
For the time that ALA has been creating word clouds of the reasons, we can see visually that reasons change over time. Book challenges are a snap-shot of our current cultural, social, and political fears.
(click on image to enlarge)
For the time that ALA has been creating word clouds of the reasons, we can see visually that reasons change over time. Book challenges are a snap-shot of our current cultural, social, and political fears.
(click on image to enlarge)
For the time that ALA has been creating word clouds of the reasons, we can see visually that reasons change over time. Book challenges are a snap-shot of our current cultural, social, and political fears.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Studying book challenges and banning is peering into cultural and social change and the backlashes against it - particularly the challenging of children's or young adult books.
Look to what is changing in our country and you can see what quickly follows will be challenges to books that represent, intentionally or unintentionally, our cultural and social shifts. Many of these books are children's or young adult books, or books that people are worried children will have access to.
The intent of this section is to look back at one of the earliest children's book challenges to understand current book challenges in context.
From the late 1940s to the early 1960s there were a relative rush of US states that repealed "anti-miscegenation" (anti-interracial marriage) laws bringing the number of states that repealed (or never had) those laws to 33.
Sixteen states, mostly in the Southern US, were holdouts until the US Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws as unconstitutional in 1967 (although it was years before some of those states removed the laws from their books, one as late as 2000). Prior to civil rights decisions from the Supreme Court, most of these states' lawmakers, law keepers, and some citizen groups openly fought desegregation, so it is no surprise that a year after the publication of "Rabbit's Wedding" by Garth Williams (1958)* an Alabama white citizens group and a state senator interpreted the book as "propaganda for integration and intermarriage". They placed immense pressure put on Alabama libraries to ban this book as a result of this interpretation.
While not all book challenges and bans are triggered by backlash against social change, enough of them are to make them worthy of our attention in helping us to understand our collective history and the times we live in now.
Mildred and Richard Loving, a BIPOC woman and a White man, were legally married in DC and then arrested in their home state of Virginia in 1958. The case Loving v. Virginia led to the 1967 Supreme Court decision striking down anti-miscegenation laws as unconstitutional.
Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws_in_the_United_States [this provides an excellent listing of the timeline of both the legislation of and the repealing of anti-miscegenation laws across the US]
1958 Rabbits’ wedding: Children’s book removed from circulation.(n.d.). Civil Rights Heritage Museum Online. https://civilrightsheritage.com/2016/06/15/1958-rabbits-wedding-childrens-book-removed-from-circulation/
Head, T. (2021, June 11). Interracial marriage laws history and timeline. Thought Co. https://www.thoughtco.com/interracial-marriage-laws-721611
Loving v. Virginia. (2021, January 5). History. https://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement/loving-v-virginia
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