Reasons why books should not be banned.
Banning books is not the answer to challenging ideas.
We were distressed, angered, and unsurprised to learn Friday that two books—Gender Queer and This Book is Gay—have been removed, silently and without announcement, from Central Bucks libraries (Gender Queer was at one HS and This Book is Gay was at one MS. Beyond Magenta, Lawn Boy, and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl remain.)
There are times when “I told you so” are the four saddest words to speak. We wish this day had never come. We worked very hard to prevent the library policy that enables the district to ban these and potentially many other books, but in the teeth of ferocious meddling by national groups, we failed. Friday was a loss for Central Bucks students and for our reputation as a bastion of learning.
Taking books from our library shelves is an attempt to control how other people’s children grow and think. Book removal is book banning. Replacing a banned book with another book of the same genre does not negate the ban, which is permanent. Each author’s story is unique and cannot be replaced by another’s. The goal is to add books to provide more representation.
We wonder why the district has not placed these titles on their website. We wonder why the decision to remove them was not made public, but was instead communicated to librarians in an email, but not to the public at large. Surely if they were proud of their work, they would have announced this development with fanfare. Will they similarly hide further titles when they ban them?
Kids need guidance, not censure
It’s all about parental rights some say. Except–which parents? Whose voices matter and don’t? How does it make any sense that some people’s problem with a book can lead to a decision (forced by bad policy) that affects every family in the district?
It’s important to remember that no family ever needed to allow their kids to read either of the two now banned books.
Every family always had the option of placing those books on restriction for their children. We do not know that any family ever did. Now families for whom those books are appropriate, cannot find them in the library.
Book censorship takes away personal choices from the majority in the community and gives control to a few of people
We will continue to work to try to get this policy repealed even as dozens more books go through the reevaluation and challenge process.
We will continue to advocate for a policy (hint: it follows the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards and Library Bill of Rights) that both ensures “materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval, and that libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment” and the rights of all parents and all children to guide their own reading according to their values. Not any one person or small group of people should dictate to others what those values are to be.
Support the Freedom to Read!
It remains critical that we advocate for the protection of library collection standards and norms in our community and in our society, as this will ensure intellectual freedom.
It is imperative that this process be trusted to the professional expertise of Central Bucks school librarians, national standards and policies, and remain unbiased, objective, and nonpartisan.