Anti-Book Fanatics & Our Schools

We are seeing assaults on the rights of children to select and read books that interest them, and of librarians and teachers to stock these in school libraries and classrooms. One Pennsylvania school district requires parents to specifically request that their children be permitted to read “Heather Has Two Mommies”; another prohibits any “controversial” books (a category that seems to include any books dealing with gender, racism, poverty or social struggles) from accessible school libraries, though again parents can request that their children be permitted to read specific titles if the school happens to have them. Few parents will know about these policies, or what books are potentially available.

The Inquirer recently ran an article about how Philadelphia-area authors of children’s books (picture books and young adult titles — many available at Bindlestiff) are being impacted by these anti-book fanatics. https://www.inquirer.com/news/banned-books-critical-race-theory-trans-lgbtq-authors-20211230.html