That's not banned...I wonder why?
You also won't see The Passing of the Great Race in the list.
Bigots want there to be no visible LGBT people in society. "Your child will encounter a gay person someday" is not an argument they care about because they would also like to ensure that gay people cannot be visible in other parts of society.
Your school not stocking books you want is not a ban. It’s the prerogative of the institution to choose how it shapes minds. It cannot avoid taking on some angle, since any incomplete collection is an editorial choice.
>Your school not stocking books you want is not a ban. It’s the prerogative of the institution to choose how it shapes minds.
At least some of these books are banned from schools by state-level law, not because the school district chose to not stock it.
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1069/BillText/er/...
The bill is all about pronouns, heterosexuality, abstinence, and getting books out of libraries on those grounds.
A ban would be you'd get in trouble for having the book in your possession, which isn't the case here.
The one I was referring to:
https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2024/08/02/utah-book-b...
"The law, which went into effect July 1, requires that a book be removed from all public schools in the state if at least three school districts (or at least two school districts and five charter schools) determine it amounts to “objective sensitive material”"
It seems like there may be more similar laws, per sibling comment.
>Aren't there other books that are banned for legitimate reasons like hate speech and racial hate that aren't included here?
I don't know, and I'm not sure how it is related to my comment. I did not create the list in the article and I don't maintain any other list of banned books.
Would you want your kids reading Mein Kampf or The Passing of the Great Race? I wouldn't.
No, they are "prohibited in the school setting". You cannot bring it with you.
Banned makes sense to me as shorthand though sure it's not quite exactly accurate. Suggest me an alternative?
EDIT: This was a sincere and I thought pretty neutral question but I have clearly touched a nerve with this. Everyone seems to be having a great time.
Prevented to be stocked? Library removed?
What should we call it when you can legally acquire the book, read and share it with other people with no concern from the law or authorities whatsoever? Do you think the correct word for this is "banned"?
Or am I completely wrong, and Jared Taylor's "White Identity" is available in every school library, explaining its absence from "banned" book lists?
"Unavailable" ?
https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questio...
Special accommodations are made for students. Parents can ask for their child not to participate in activities they deem inappropriate. I see this happen all of the time during Halloween events. It would be nice if Christian conservatives would do the same.
I sure am glad that there is an Objectively Correct set of books children should be exposed to, unaffected by issues of identity, politics, or morality, and it's just a matter of applying dispassionate expertise to discover it.
Yeah, no.
Either it's high schoolers and below in the comments here, or it's histrionic adults who identify with the same.
Is it like if you bring the book to school you’ll be sent home or something?
Most schools (at least in Idaho) have libraries attached to the school.
[1] https://www.acluidaho.org/app/uploads/2024/05/final_2024_05_...
What there actually are, are books that schools refuse to carry in their libraries because they don't think the content is appropriate for children. I would assume this happens in every country.
You are just fundamentally wrong on the facts here. This list is specifically books that were removed from libraries due to outside forces. I'm not worried about school librarians deciding that a book's content makes it unsuitable for their students. These are situations in which parents or government officials are telling the school to remove a book already present.
https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questio...
How are children supposed to develop into adults, if they are denied reading about the experiences of others?
Call me when you're arrested or fined for buying/selling any book in US.
That still doesn't address my original question. Is there historic precedent for this type of micromanaging of school libraries (if you're adamant that we shouldn't use the B word) that most of us would still agree with today? Because many of the books on the list seem more likely to follow the path of eventual school classics like The Grapes of Wrath or To Kill a Mockingbird than they are to continue to be banned decades into the future.
I'd agree with limiting access based on age, but a lot of these laws have a binary if not outright ban on library access.
What's appropriate to a 10, 12, 14, and 16 year old is pretty broad as these kids mature fast in a few short years. I see no reason why any 16 year old should be restricted from any book.
The first time I tried to check out one of those very adult books the librarian called my parents and asked if it was OK. My parents said "Yes. Let him have whatever he wants." They made a note in my account and the next day they let me have have whatever I wanted.
If that hadn't happened I would be a very different, and much dumber, person now.
I don't understand what the issue is with just asking the parents?
I suspect that most of the people responsible for these "bans" don't want that to happen because some parents will approve of things they don't. Most of this really IS an attempted ban rather than just "appropriate age related content" issue. They don't want to control what THEIR kids can see. They want to control what YOUR kids can see.
It's just so bizarre to make an argument (A very valid one!) about freedom of information by openly lying to the public.
You can look into it, if you're curious! Some of these books are indeed banned from schools (even if they want to stock it!), by state-level law no less! It's not a curation choice.
So, banned then?
Sorry, I'll edit my comment to be more clear. It is illegal for school libraries to stock it, even if they (teachers, the district, the parents, etc.) want it to be carried.
As a reminder for readers, the title of the article contains "in U.S. schools". It is probably a safe assumption to use that context for the comments in this thread.
Librarians and teachers choose books, then some external party forces them to be removed. If you don't like the term "banned", choose a term you like better.
Which book was that?
https://pen.org/book-bans/book-bans-frequently-asked-questio...
This doesn't seem to be a particularly large problem.
That is not a rebuttal to your point -- I don't have a guess on whether or not the chilling effect is significant. I'm just noting there are follow-on effects to be considered.
There are much worse, much bigger problems and we need to constantly be reminding people of how big issues actually are. Book bannings are concerning but what is the size of the actual impact? I see this issue more of as an embarrassment for a handful of schools and boards who are bowing to moralizing fools, people are acting like they're afraid of an escalation to Fahrenheit 451 when we really should be mocking the book banners for their foolishness instead of being afraid of them.
This is far from the only issue suffering from a lack of sense of scale.
And it all started with people complaining about books in the library.
Probably also worth asking if this problem is really independent, or if it's a facet of larger, more clearly damaging trends.
This does on account for soft bans like undisclosed do not buy lists. No need to ban what you are not allowed to buy.
By this definition, The Bible is the most "banned book" across the country, even though it's probably the most consequential piece of literature ever written.
This continuous doublespeak is even more humorous considering the site has actual shopping links to every 'banned book'.
Would you agree for the school to have the book "The Passing of the Great Race", a famously racist and white supremacist book in your school library?
Personally I think using banned for "actively prevented from accessing in ways other books are not" makes plenty of sense even if you can effectively circumvent those attempts somehow.
The strict meaning that people seem to want to apply in here does not seem particularly useful to me. Almost no books have ever been banned by that standard, but there is a clearly organized movement in the US to remove all reference to queerness from public life. Flexible on nomenclature here but that context is very important.
> Grant became a part of popular culture in 1920s America. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald made a lightly disguised reference to Grant in The Great Gatsby. In the book, the character Tom Buchanan reads a book called The Rise of the Colored Empires by "this man Goddard", a combination of Grant and his colleague Lothrop Stoddard. ...
> ... "Everybody ought to read it", the character said. "The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be — will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."
False.
I have absolutely no problem saying that bigots who insist that no books containing LGBT characters appear in libraries are bad people while also thinking that The Turner Diaries shouldn't be in public schools.
Remember that the parents are deciding for other parents what appears in libraries.
This thread is full of people falling over themselves trying to convince you that a book ban isn't actually a book ban, and whatever it happens to be isn't that big of a deal.
If the banning of books from libraries isn't a big deal - why is it being done in the first place? Is it just virtue signaling, or does it have a specific objective? If it has a specific objective, isn't that objective worth interrogating instead of brushing off as not a big deal because the book is still available through other means?
The narrative is "look at these liberals forcing sex on children." Parents go to school board meetings and read passages ripped from context as lurid eroticism to rile up their neighbors. If normies go along with this "think of the children" stuff then it becomes a foothold to the next steps. We've seen this trans people, where bigots have successfully converted "this is about girl's sports" into policies banning healthcare and safe bathroom use.
to forbid (= refuse to allow) something, especially officially
The school won't kick you out for having the book, but they won't buy it.
You keep saying this all over this thread, can you please tell me how you are reaching this conclusion?
I have linked you to at least one entire state (covering 40+ school districts) where what you are saying is completely false.
Typically, if a school bans something, it also means that the children are not allowed to bring the banned thing onto the school premises.
> PEN America defines a school book ban as any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished. Diminished access is a form of censorship and has educational implications that extend beyond a title’s removal. Accessibility forms the core of PEN America’s definition of a school book ban and emphasizes the multiple ways book bans infringe on the rights of students, professional educators, and authors. It is important to recognize that books available in schools, whether in a school or classroom library, or as part of a curriculum, were selected by librarians and educators as part of the educational offerings to students. Book bans occur when those choices are overridden by school boards, administrators, teachers, or politicians, on the basis of a particular book’s content.
In particular it's when the decisions of the professionals are being overruled for political purposes.
It is particularly clear when reading the list, many of these books are children/young adults books which have won highest national and international awards, but somehow they are "age inappropriate"?
If not, it would make sense that Texas made the news because it's out of the ordinary.
You can argue banning or filtering some books for kids is the right thing to do, but the obvious question is then: what books and why?
Seems like you are fighting a strawman.
If "filtering content for children" is not banning books, then why is "filtering content for adults" banning books?
> By this definition, The Bible is the most "banned book" across the country
According to the source the high score is 147. Has the Bible been banned 148 times or more in the US?
The only books I can think of that are actually banned, as in it's against the law to obtain, in the US would be like a B2 bomber capability manual or some other classified documentation.
The Pentagon Papers case says that, once revealed, classified information can be published.
How about dangerous information. Want to know how to make a fusion bomb? Start at https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/fusion/index.html. More detailed schematics are easy to find.
All that said, I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
But carrying it is unlikely to be against the law either.
Pen clearly defines what they consider a ban. Hustler would not meet the definition (hint: it's not because its a magazine).
Even if you really dial in your definition of "consequential", ie. the amount of stagnated technological and societal progress and murder as a result of the Bible's adherents' efforts, this seems an absurd claim.
Most consequential piece of literature is likely the Plimpton 322 or Euclid's Elements or The Epic Of Gilgamesh. The Bible is an embarrassing footnote.
Now, it seems to be be more about representation: "Do we want to say our school supports the ideas in this book?"
I'm not defending book banning, but people seem to treat book banning as if it's still the 1950s, and schools are really censoring information in any sort of meanginful way. Instead, all the schools are doing is taking a stand and saying "this book does not represent us."
Mind you, I still think this is bad, but I'm a bit baffled why people treat this topic the way they do.
Popular banned books like Lolita, mein kampf are not here, but they are also not in U.S. schools. There are also no books listed here that schools definitely (for good reason) do not have, like COVID denialism, cult books, etc.
I'm happy to be proven wrong in the comments though, this is just from my cursory look at how they define it.
Honest question: Are those books banned in schools?
The books that "require banning" are good children's books. Isn't that the point?
So if a librarian goes to a conference and learns, "hey we need to remove these books from the lirbary because they are bigoted/racist/problematic" and they do so, that is not a book ban. But if parents say, "hey this book is not appropriate for our kids, this should not be in a school library", and they raise hell to get it removed, that is a book ban. The whole framing is dumb.
It is well accepted that the lab-leak theory is highly improbable, and all of the evidence is that it came from the wet markets.
At first glance this is a useless list
The gist: Books that were previously available but removed due to pressure from outside (or other teachers)
There are common themes among all of them. All of them, your average parent, would rather their children not be exposed to in school. This list is more like "what should/shouldn't be acceptable for kids and teens". This is hardly a ban. It's at best parental control. But selling it as a ban is key to outrage culture and delivering their opinions about the current administration. Nothing is stopping a parent from purchasing these books for their child. Nothing is stopping them from finding them as a PDF, or at a local or online reseller. Pretending this is "taboo" information is an extremely poor attempt to hide political bikeshedding.
So I think one thing to keep in mind is that books added or removed from shelves based on the editorial choices of the library staff is not considered a book ban - and it's why books like Mein Kampf or Lolita don't also show up on these lists despite being very intentionally kept off the shelves by librarians.
Oftentimes school districts or libraries already have a system in place where offensive or non age-appropriate books can have restrictions placed on it based on parent or student feedback.
All this to say I think it makes book bans a bit muddier - in some instances they might be legitimate pushback on aggressive editorialization by librarians. But in most instances, they are self-obviously performative and unnecessary.
It is simply a Russell conjugation: librarians curate books; parents and school boards ban books.
Personally, I don't trust librarians or school boards, and I put a lot of work into curating reading material for my own children. Many of the books I value are out-of-print, or unavailable in any public library, whereas almost all these so-called "banned books" are available in most public libraries. So yeah, these lists get a giant eye-roll from me.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/banned-books/_/N-rtm
It makes you wonder what books Barnes and Noble has banned from being sold in their stores.
Even if the librarian (or in some cases, even if the school district) wants to place the book on the shelves, they are not allowed to.
Mostly books about young people confronting the problems facing young people
A window into the minds of adults. A distorted window, I hope, or there is no hole for those adults
Protect children? Stop abusing, punishing and condemning them for being children. But no, ban books that might give them clues on coping
What outrageous behavior, bless the librarians
My journey into professional software development was due to the efforts of the GNU organization that provided high quality compilers and tools along with a legal structure to promote the creation of more free software. The innovation was that code is speech and is protected by the first amendment (in the US). I have watched the software community devolve into just corrupt thievery due to the silicon valley "as long as I get rich, I am good" culture. That culture is seeping into every aspect of our social lives leading to deep enshittification. Monopolization of the means of artistic expression due to financialization is ruining everything.
...By which I mean people should be free to speak about it and to vote it in whatever way they deem. See, the words we use have meanings, and stretching them to benefit our agenda is a shitty thing to do.
At least Iowa has largely went the other direction recently by removing it and Maus from absurd book bans.
I now wonder whether this is great (freedom and so on) or terrible (manipulation and so on)
nerdjon•1h ago
I don't understand the logic of banning these books, do they act like the internet doesn't exist? Kids will find this information, I found plenty of information about being gay 20ish years ago in high school.
Then again being short sited is one of their strong suits.
(Not downplaying banned books, I just can't understand thinking it is a good idea)
jfindper•1h ago
My local bookstore proudly features a table of "banned books" right at the entrance. It's a pretty good advertisement!
seg_lol•1h ago
Book bans are not designed to stop people that know about these books and the ideas they contain. They know that those people will still find them and read them.
> I found plenty of information about being gay 20ish years ago in high school.
Lots of kids didn't and they don't know they didn't and that is the point.
nerdjon•1h ago
But (well until the last couple of years) you would have still seen "different" people on tv and in movies.
And I get that the point is to make it so the kids are not being exposed to different ideas and beliefs. I am just struggling to understand how that is actually a realistic idea in todays world.
rdtsc•1h ago
That's great idea, many stores have them!
This is not about bookstores but about school. So then, would you put that bookshelf in a second grade class. How early do kids need to hear about "Five troubled teenagers fall into prostitution as they search for freedom, safety, community, family, and love". I mean, a lot of those kids still believe in Santa maybe telling them about teenage prostitutes is a bit early.
negzero7•1h ago
I am against the banning of books from purchase or from public libraries, however banning books in schools is not that. It is gatekeeping this information from young and impressionable minds, just like we do with movies, games, drugs, all sorts of things. Things that may have negative consequences on developing minds.
You may disagree with what books are banned or why, but allowing unsupervised exposure of elementary aged children to sexually explicit and graphically depicted books such as Gender Queer is not appropriate. If a child wants access to this, their parent or adult can buy it for them or rent it from the public library.