Book Bans
Project Progress
Commonly banned books carried by the HHS library are now tagged with a red sticker on the spine! All tagged books appear on the American Library Association's 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books: 2010-2019 and/or 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022. If you're an HHS student, consider checking out a book marked with a red sticker!
PSA
lv_0_20231027110753.mp4Click the dropdown to veiw the transcript.
Transcript
From July of 2021 through March of 2022, there were nearly sixteen hundred actions taken in school districts to ban more than eleven hundred titles.
That's more bans than in 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined.
Thirty-two states have banned more than 2,000 books in the past year.
Many of the banned books have main characters who are people of color. About of quarter directly addresses race or racism. A little more than that deal with themes related to being LGBTQ.
But the truth of the matter is that most of these books are challenged based on obscenity, which is an excuse to not have to say it's because there are racial topics, or there are sexual topics in these books.
What is clear is that the people most impacted are already the students. Students who are being robbed of places and ways to ask questions and get information, who are being told that something about themselves is wrong.
Not every book is for everybody but every book is for someone.
It might not be for [my child], and it might not be for my family, and it might not be for most kids but there is one kid who might, one student, who might need to read that book and it's there for them.
The real question is why is discomfort a bad thing? Is being uncomfortable the same as being unsafe? The answer is no.
Community Need
As a queer person, I love that our school library has so many books I can see myself in. However, these books aren't easily accessible everywhere, even in places we may view as accepting or progressive. Over the last few years, I've noticed more and more books and authors I enjoy on banned book lists. Book banning has been rising significantly in the U.S. since 2021, often targeting authors of color and queer authors. With my project, I hope to make our community more aware of what/who is being targeted and encourage people to pick up a banned book, both to fight censorship and support authors whose books are restricted elsewhere.
Community Partnership
For my project, I partnered with Mrs. Kelly McDaniel, a librarian at HHS and RAMS. With her help, I was able to implement a system of tagging banned books that worked smoothly with the existing tagging system in the high school library. We had several conversations about local, state, and national book banning that I found brought an important perspective to my project.
Behind the Project
My name is Wren Clougher, a current junior at HHS. I use any pronouns and feminine or masculine terms. In addition to reading, my hobbies include art, embroidery, and theater. I often read fantasy and romance. Some of my favorite books include Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe* by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo* by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune.
*This title has been challenged and/or banned.