Late last month, thousands of Americans participated in Banned Books Week activities, demonstrations and protests, and this year’s event was one of the most critical in decades because of the assault of what has been called controversial reading material in our schools.

This was the 40th observance of the annual event whose intent is to celebrate the freedom to read. Banned Book Week started in 1982 in response to a surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries, not unlike what is going on now in our society.

The observance is intended to “highlight the value of free and open access to information.” As part of this year’s observance, there were numerous protests across the country to call attention to yet another surge in efforts to ban certain books that are deemed to be inappropriate for young people.

The American Libraries Association Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles lists of challenged books as reported in the media and submitted by librarians and teachers.

The latest list includes: “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison, “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson, “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Perez, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie, “Me and Earl” and the “Dying Girl” by Jesse Andrews, “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “This Book is Gay” by June Dawson and “Beyond Magenta” by Susan Kuklin.

Most of these books were banned because of allegations of explicit sexual language, profanity, race, racism or LGBTQIA content.

This year’s theme was “Books Unite Us; Censorship Divides Us.” According to the organizers of this effort, “Banned Books Week is a reminder of the unifying power of stories and the divisiveness of censorship and a call to action for readers to push back against censorship attempts in their communities.”

I was really surprised at how few events there were in eastern Pennsylvania to observe Banned Book Week. I was told by several teachers in area schools that they are “scared stiff” to even bring up or talk about the subject for fear of riling up parents or members of their boards of education.

The only major protest that I could find in eastern Pennsylvania was in Doylestown, Bucks County, where demonstrators dressed in the dust jackets of banned books and marched through the streets of the Bucks’ County seat community.

During Banned Books Week, PEN America, an organization which says its goal is to “protect open expression” both here and abroad, reports that more than 400 books have been either challenged or banned at 11 different school districts in Pennsylvania, including East Stroudsburg Area School District in Monroe County, meaning that the state placed second highest in the number of banned books next only to Texas. This is a deceptive number, however, because the Central York School District is responsible for 441 of the 459 books banned.

PEN America says the unprecedented number of banned books is occurring “often through a coordinated effort by special interest groups.” In its report about the growing movement to censor books in schools, the organization said that what is going on is not a spontaneous expression of concern by parents and other taxpayers, rather the “work of a growing number of advocacy organizations that have made demanding censorship of certain books and ideas in school part of their mission.”

According to the group’s director of its Free Expression and Education Programs, Jonathan Friedman, “Students are losing access to literature that equips them to meet the challenges and complexities of democratic citizenship.” Friedman told CNN recently that parents sometimes request that a book be banned without having read it but acted after seeing a post about it on social media.

PEN America’s report pointed to 50 groups that have been in the forefront of the ban books movement. Key among them is Moms for Liberty, which has a strong footprint in Pennsylvania, where it has chapters in 23 counties, including Monroe. The group is “linked directly” to 20% of the book bans enacted in the last school year, the report said.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

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