Book challenges aren’t anything new for me as a queer school librarian.
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I’ve been a school librarian for over twenty years, and I’m the head of our district-wide department. I led my team in developing selection policies to ensure that our collections are not only appropriate but rich in both quality and diversity. Just a few years ago, I helped update policies for handling challenges from parents who object to certain books — well aware of the political climate.
The so-called Moms for Liberty are leading the charge on these challenges to certain titles in our school libraries. This group encourages their conservative women members to access our library catalogs, search for specific titles, and then raise a huge fuss. Parents are more than welcome to restrict their children from checking out any materials. Their kids, their rules.
But to remove the book from the library so that no kid in that school can have access to it? A book that’s already gone through a selection process, chosen for not only its merits but also its potential usefulness for a particular student need? That’s blatant censorship.
The students seem to get it. They listened intently to my September lesson on intellectual freedom, scrutinizing the slide showing the covers of the past year’s most challenged books. I see their eyes take in an array of covers, and I know they see the rainbow theme.
Gender Queer by Maia Kobe has been the most banned book in the U.S. for three years now, I tell them. I add, that it was put on trial in Virginia, where a judge declared it “not obscene.”
Gender Queer is a memoir in graphic-novel format about a person questioning their gender and sexuality. It’s in our library, I explain, because it’s important to represent as many people’s identities as we can. But, I go on, sometimes people have issues with that topic, and others like it.
Other titles on the ALA’s list of “Most Challenged Books” are All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson and Flamer by Mike Curato. This Book is Gay, bright, and beautiful in its spot at number three, and has been on the banned books list since 2016.
The last time Matt called me was just a few weeks ago, about a parent complaint against ‘Gender Queer’ and ‘This Book is Gay.’
Hear her out, I advised Matt. Most parents just want to express their values and concerns. Others are mostly complaining so that they can brag to their Moms for Liberty friends that they “told off” the school.
That particular mother lamented to Matt that she didn’t want her daughters to read these books, lest it “turn them gay.”
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I fume beneath my skin at the parents’ sentiments. I know the power of books, yes, and I know all too well how these parents feel about queer people because my parents are just like them. So I also know how to keep my feelings locked inside; at work, they praise this suppression as “professionalism.”
Matt responded to that parent as I’d coached him — offering to put restrictions on the girls’ accounts, but emphasizing that the books couldn’t be removed without going through the formal challenge process.
So far, complaints have always fizzled, usually shortly after I hand over official paperwork. The first question surely looms large: Have you read the work in its entirety? The following questions ask complainants to consider the book’s accolades along with the way they feel it violates their values.
Matt and I thought we’d mitigated the situation a few weeks ago, but the superintendent called me last week to say that this parent had submitted a formal complaint to the school board. I figured that Matt was calling about that. But he wasn’t.
“Anna, do you know Addie Baker?”
“Addie? Of course!” I had known her since she was a little kid. She had often lingered in the library long after her class left, intent on being my helper. When I announced that I’d be transferring to the high school, I found then-8th-grader Addie crying on the shelves. “I’m just sad you won’t be my librarian anymore.”
I chuckled in response, reminding her that I would be her librarian for four more years at the high school. Adolescent emotions don’t always make sense — I know this as an educator as well as a parent. Heck, all of us who’ve been through that phase of life can surely remember the horrors of teenage angst.
By the time Addie started at the high school a year later, she was much more chill. I was glad to see that she had found a friend group, and I wasn’t offended that she didn’t visit this library with the frequency of her younger days.
All I told Matt, though, was, “I know her from Bedford.” Then I paused, my motherly instincts in overdrive from my rough week dealing with my son’s issues. I stammered, “Matt, is she okay? What’s wrong?”
I heard Matt clear his throat on the other end of the line. “Oh. Yes, yes. She’s fine, it’s just she came in here very upset about a book today.”
I felt my brain quickly scanning the possibilities, still worried about her. Books can bring up emotions, this I know. They can trigger the brain to dwell on something that you didn’t want to dig up.
“The book is called Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide for Teens,” Matt said.
I felt my heart sink. Another queer book complaint. Which is to say, another complaint about queer people.
Even the superintendent had admitted as such last week when I assured her that the books from that complaint weren’t pornographic. “Let’s be real, Anna,” she said. “They’re not bothered by sex scenes. They’re trying to ban these books because of their homophobia.”
