NYT article on the report from PEN: Advocacy Groups Are Helping Drive a Rise in Book Bans - The New York Times (nytimes.com) At least 50 advocacy groups pushed to ban books during the last school year, according to a report that the free speech group PEN America released on Monday, highlighting how challenges to reading material have become a political issue across the country. “This is a concerted, organized, well-resourced push at censorship,” said Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of PEN America. The effort, she said, “is ideologically motivated and politically expedient, and it needs to be understood as such in order to be confronted and addressed properly.” Traditionally, when individual parents had concerns about books their children were reading, they would approach a teacher or librarian directly to discuss it. But today, long lists of titles deemed objectionable circulate online, bouncing from one district to the next. Elected officials, including local office holders and governors, have staked out vocal positions on the issue, demanding that “obscene” materials and even specific titles be rooted out from school libraries. Restrictions have also come in the form of district-level policy changes and statewide legislation, the report said. “There needs to be room for discussion of things like age appropriateness and readiness, that’s perfectly legitimate,” Nossel said. “But that’s not what this is about.” Of the groups that have pushed to have certain books removed from schools, PEN said, Moms for Liberty has grown the fastest. Formed in 2021, it now lists more than 200 local chapters on its website, according to the report. Home - PEN America Spoiler: Who they are PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Founded in 1922, PEN America is the largest of the more than 100 centers worldwide that make up the PEN International network. PEN America works to ensure that people everywhere have the freedom to create literature, to convey information and ideas, to express their views, and to access the views, ideas, and literatures of others. Our strength is our Membership—a nationwide community of more than 7,500 novelists, journalists, nonfiction writers, editors, poets, essayists, playwrights, publishers, translators, agents, and other writing professionals, as well as devoted readers and supporters who join with them to carry out PEN America’s mission. Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools - PEN America Over the 2021–22 school year, what started as modest school-level activity to challenge and remove books in schools grew into a full-fledged social and political movement, powered by local, state, and national groups. The vast majority of the books targeted by these groups for removal feature LGBTQ+ characters or characters of color, and/or cover race and racism in American history, LGBTQ+ identities, or sex education. This movement to ban books is deeply undemocratic, in that it often seeks to impose restrictions on all students and families based on the preferences of those calling for the bans and notwithstanding polls that consistently show that Americans of all political persuasions oppose book bans.
Running list of school books banned per district -> PEN America's Index of School Book Bans (July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022) - Google Sheets "Girls Who Code" series (multiple author, 4 titles). Apparently, closing the gender gap in technology is too much. What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that Stacia Deutsch's The Friendship Code is the first book in the new Girls Who Code series, inspired by the national nonprofit organization of the same name that's dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology. It's a fast read about a sixth-grade girl who can't wait to get started at her new coding club at school and who works with her friends to solve a mystery. The story has a diverse group of characters and includes real-life struggles, such as an uncle battling cancer and a mother getting divorced. Parents who want to introduce their kids to coding and computer science might enjoy reading this, too. Some other popular books that have been banned: Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck The Life of Rosa Parks, Kathleen Connors Brave New World, Aldous Huxley Lord of the Flies, William Golding To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee https://www.newsweek.com/handmaids-tale-girls-who-code-other-books-banned-us-1745890 Some of the biggest titles in classic and modern literature have been banned in schools and libraries around the United States, including The Handmaid's Tale, Girls Who Code, and more. PEN America, an organization that advocates for free expression in literature, recently updated the nationwide index that lists every book banned in the 2021-22 school year. The index came out on Monday, the start of Banned Books Week, and listed 1,648 titles that were banned around the U.S. this year, not including titles that were repeated in multiple states. The index also acknowledged that books may have been banned that were not recorded. According to the report, books were banned in 5,049 schools with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students in 32 states. According to PEN America, Texas and Florida ranked first and second among states with the most bans … Chief executive officer of PEN America, Suzanne Nossel, said in a recent press release, "While we think of book bans as the work of individual concerned citizens, our report demonstrates that today's wave of bans represents a coordinated campaign to banish books being waged by sophisticated, ideological and well-resourced advocacy organizations."
Why doesn't it surprise me that right wing Abbott and DeSantis' states top the list? Onward White Christian soldiers! Arm up, and fight those woke leftists! Death to those grooming pedophiles outside our party. We will ignore the hypocrites in our own party because they are God's chosen ones, and their sins aren't as bad.
by banned are they talking about the books are not purchased and given to underage students in a public school? I assume it isn't that deb cannot buy them on amazon right?
It's much more nuanced than that. People who don't hate homosexuals will find it discrimitory to allow a picture book that has a young male and female couple holding hands in their school library but think that a picture book with two boys holding hands cannot be seen by the pure eyes of innocence. It's the inherent believe that all homosexual relationships are sexually explicit regardless of how they are portrayed. That's just one example.
I guess going by their equivalency of communist China, these are not at all banned. Banned materials in China are tracked on torrents and IP addresses traced. Malware is placed in honeypot banned materials for information gathering on chinese people. these books are not handed to children via public funds but are otherwise freely available.
Did you read my post? My comment had nothing to do with these books being banned from the public. I know this. The person who started the thread knows this. The concern here is the culture around this movement.
Yet we always hear the real problem with censorship is PRIVATE businesses removing people from their platforms rather than GOVERNMENTS removing books from their libraries.
A highschooler can not read Of Mice and Men or are you saying Texas has decided public funds will not be used to put certain materials in childrens hands? One means banned, the other not so much.
censored, banned - same effect the type of ban is listed in the worksheet "banned in libraries and classrooms" "banned in classrooms" "banned in libraries"
So "banned" just means that public money is not being spent to buy the books. Nobody stops anyone from buying the books. @Bandwagoner is pointing out a very important difference here. The books are not actually banned in the state. A more conscious decision is being made on what public money gets spent on. Seems like manufactured outrage. Now, about the individual books, I cannot comment.
Yes and moderates and liberals believe it's worrisome that people who believe that a picture book that shows a picture of two men raising a child with zero sexual content is offensive and sexually explicit and then believe a picture book that has a male and female couple raising a child as not sexually explicit have enough clout to influence and dictate the public school curriculum. That is heart of this issue.
And the problem I have with you in particular is that you would be vehemently against Muslim conservatives trying to dictate curriculum of secular public schools such as a Muslim org wanting to ban all books that show women without head scarfs from school curriculums. There is no consistency behind your beliefs besides "what triggers the libs".
Banned from schools. PEN (founded in 1922, their mission: "people everywhere have the freedom to create literature, to convey information and ideas, to express their views, and to access the view, ideas, and literature of others") is bringing awareness to a new movement of school books banning in the US. They provided details to back up their stance on the movement. Manufactured outrage has to be based on two things - 1) non-facts or misleading information and 2) there is actual outrage. Neither of that applies here to PEN. PEN's goal isn't to generate outrage - they aren't a political organization that is trying to go after one party or one person.. it's the movement that is concerning to them. Now, I'm sure there is outrage for book banning and I think it's would be quite understandable, but that's not something you or I control. One should look at both the overall trend/movement and individual books that are being banned. This movement is led by a small minority. The US do not support school book bans. A large majority of both Republicans and Democrats are against efforts to remove books from public libraries and from school libraries. https://www.ala.org/advocacy/voters-oppose-book-bans-libraries Large majorities oppose book removals in school libraries after hearing arguments from both sides. After hearing reasons to both support and oppose efforts to remove books from school libraries because some parents find them offensive or inappropriate, voters oppose efforts to remove books from school libraries by a 34-point margin (67% oppose, 33% support). Similarly, after hearing arguments on both sides, parents oppose efforts to remove books from school libraries by a 22-point margin (61% oppose, 39% support), and this view holds true for parents with children of all grade levels: 59% of parents with children in pre-K through 5th grade, 66% with middle schoolers, and 64% with high schoolers oppose book removals.
