Here is an article that is not about any of the “normal” topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, it is abput a subject that interests me and I would like to share it:
A 13-year-old from Arkansas wasn’t allowed to use Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give for a book report. A 16-year-old from Idaho was scared to check out LGBTQIA+ books from their library, “because I don’t want anyone to find out.” A 15-year-old from Ohio says the school library was “entirely cleared out and locked in a closet.”
These are just a few of the stories from young people affected by the compounding impacts of book bans and limited access to reading material featured in a new report released by Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) and The Seattle Public Library (SPL). Two years after the launch of Books Unbanned, an initiative to protect the freedom to read for young people, “In Their Own Words: Youth Voices on Books Unbanned” gives new insight into the impact of censorship on teens and young adults across the United States and how restrictions and other barriers to access build upon and reinforce each other.
More than 14,000 young people had signed up for Books Unbanned programs at the two libraries through February 2024, collectively checking out over 340,000 books. Books Unbanned cardholders have signed up from every state in the nation, as well as D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico.
“In an era of unprecedented challenges to the freedom to read, this report offers a chance to hear directly from the youth who are most affected,” said Tom Fay, Chief Librarian of The Seattle Public Library. “Their stories document, in heartbreaking and hopeful detail, both the serious impacts of censorship attempts and how programs like Books Unbanned are providing joy, representation and escape for a new generation of readers.”
“In Their Own Words” analyzes 855 stories shared by young people, ages 13 to 26, who signed up for a free Books Unbanned e-card from either BPL or SPL from April 2022 through December 2023. University of Washington Information School graduate students categorized and tagged the stories to identify common themes. The stories analyzed for the report are a subset of thousands that the two libraries have received in the past two years from every state in the nation, as well as D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico.
A key theme uncovered in the analysis was how formal acts of censorship, bans, challenges, and restrictions to reading material can create a climate of fear and intimidation for young people.
You can read more in an article in the thecitylife.org web site at: http://bit.ly/44cfjvg.