Consider This from NPR - Authors Of Banned Books Are Fed Up – and Fighting Back

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

2023 is on track to beat last year's record when it comes to book bans. The free speech group PEN America counted 2,500 instances of book bans in U.S. schools during the 2021-22 academic year.Author J...udy Blume has had a number of her books banned. She spoke to NPR ahead of the release of a documentary about her life, "Judy Blume Forever," streaming on Amazon Prime April 21.And NPR's Tovia Smith spoke to other authors of banned books about how the scrutiny has negatively impacted their sales - and about alternative ways they've found to get their stories to readers, outside of schools.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at considerthis@npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org It's hard to imagine adolescence without the author Judy Blume. Her books have been loved by young adults for decades. Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret. We're moving today.
Starting point is 00:00:35 I'm so scared, God. I've never lived anywhere but here. But some of Blume's books have also been under scrutiny for decades, described by some critics as containing inappropriate material. Oh, you're still flat, Nancy laughed. Not exactly, I said, pretending to be very cool. I'm small-boned is all. I'm growing already, Nancy said, sticking her chest way out. In a few years, I'm going to look like one of those girls in Playboy. Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret, was published in 1970. And if you're unfamiliar with this book, it's a coming-of-age story. It follows Margaret, who's grappling with moving to a new town and all the realities of going through puberty, like bras, periods, and boys.
Starting point is 00:01:23 It's been banned in some schools and libraries for discussing topics like menstruation. Another one of Bloom's novels, Forever, deals with the realities of teenage sexuality. The main character, Catherine, a high school senior, loses her virginity and enters her first serious relationship. It's one of the few books that Bloom did not write specifically for children and preteens.
Starting point is 00:01:45 Her intended audience was teenagers, and it has been repeatedly banned since its release in 1975 due to what some call inappropriate sexual content. Bloom's 1973 book, Dini, was also banned for discussing sexuality, including brief references to masturbation. Those are just three of five Judy Blume titles on the American Library Association's list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 1990s. I felt so alone and dejected, and people were coming after me and coming after my books. My colleague Mary Louise Kelly spoke with Bloom about Judy Bloom Forever, a new documentary about the author's life, streaming on Amazon Prime starting April 21st. In it, Bloom discusses the criticism and hatred that she and her work have received. The 70s was a very good time for people who were writing books, for kids who were reading books. I could bring wonderful books home to my own kids who were that age in the 70s. And then all of a sudden,
Starting point is 00:02:54 in the 80s, everything changed. You know, we had censorship, and we had adults who were running into schools demanding that books be removed. Not just books that they didn't want their kids to read, but books that they didn't want any kids to read. So the recent wave of book bans all around the country, it's nothing new to Bloom, though that doesn't mean she's not concerned. Where we are today is so much worse, so much worse. Whoever dreamed, I never dreamed that it would be back like this. The reality is Judy Bloom is not alone. She is one of many authors who have seen their books pulled from schools and libraries after being labeled harmful. And she says she's no longer afraid to speak out about it. And it was when I met the National Coalition Against Censorship that I realized I wasn't alone.
Starting point is 00:03:52 And then other authors who were also in the same position that I was, and we would go out together and we would speak out because speaking out is so much better for you in every way than hiding at home. Consider this. Book bans this American schools during the 2021-22 academic year alone. And most of those banned books had LGBTQ or racial themes. And the minds behind those stories are fed up and they're fighting back. After the break, we hear how some authors are coming up with creative ways to get their stories to young readers despite censorship. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Thursday, April 6th. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees.
Starting point is 00:05:06 Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. 2023 could be a record year for book bans. And as more and more books are challenged or outright banned from public libraries and schools, that all has an impact on sales of those books. Some titles have seen a spike in sales after a ban. That was the case after the Holocaust graphic novel Mouse was recently they are finding creative ways to get their stories into the hands of readers anyway, outside of schools. NPR's Tobias Smith has more. It's hard to overstate how quickly a school ban can bring an unhappy ending to the shelf life of a book.
Starting point is 00:06:00 This is one case where that old line that there's no such thing as bad publicity is more the exception than the rule. I get a lot of like, oh, your book's been banned. Congratulations, it's going to be a bestseller now. But that's not what happens to 999 out of 1,000 books. Ilana K. Arnold saw several of her books, like Red Hood and What Girls Are Made Of, banned for sexually explicit scenes that critics call pornography. She calls that a gross misrepresentation, but her book sales plummeted. It's a huge hit. And I think because in a library, kids can stumble across something. They didn't know they needed until they picked it up and read it. But if something is missing, you don't know it's not there. For most books, it's just a quiet
Starting point is 00:06:41 disappearance. New numbers from the free speech group PEN America show those disappearances are happening even more frequently this school year than last, when there were some 2,500 instances of book bans in U.S. schools. Most of those books were race and LGBTQ related. It's why many people are now taking it upon themselves to get those books back where young readers will see them outside of school. This is my favorite series ever. A new banned book, Nook, recently opened inside a Ben & Jerry's ice cream shop
Starting point is 00:07:13 in Melbourne, Florida, lending out about 150 books on day one. It was set up by Florida teacher Adam Tritt and the group he started, Foundation 451, after he was ordered to remove banned books from his classroom in nearby Palm Bay. My reaction was, no, I cannot allow this to happen. If the kid needs this book, we want them to have it. Tritt has already lent or given away nearly 2,000 banned books at a flower shop, street fairs, rallies, and road races. It's been a lifeline, he says.
Starting point is 00:07:48 One family came in with a trans teenager and picked up This Book is Gay and just cried. And their father held them, and they both just thanked us so much. They didn't know this book existed. Hi. How are you? Thais Perkins, who owns Reverie Books in Austin, Texas, is one of many booksellers also giving books away. She covers some of the cost herself and raises the rest. On a whim, I put on Twitter, hey, is anybody feeling extra Christmassy? And I woke up in the morning with $1,400 in an account. Around the nation, there's a growing number of similar giveaways, pop-up
Starting point is 00:08:26 libraries, little free libraries packed with banned books, and even a banned bookmobile. Chris Finnan heads the National Coalition Against Censorship. What we are beginning to see after a year and a half of really kind of being back on our heels is that the opposition is growing, that the other side is overreaching, and it's making people mad, and they're getting active. Including students themselves. What really got to me was two books that completely transformed my life were suddenly on a banned book list, and it kind of felt like a stab to the gut. 18-year-old high school senior Oliver Sterling from St. George, Utah, says a school librarian recommended the books to him when he was struggling with his
Starting point is 00:09:09 sexuality and fighting thoughts of suicide. Now he's raising money to slip books like those into little free libraries all over town. If I can give one kid a book that helps that kid, that lets them know that they're not alone, that would make everything worth it. Of course, tech-savvy kids who know the banned book they want can also find it online. So if we search The Bluest Eye, which has recently been banned in Florida. It takes 16-year-old Elle Meltreder from Florida about a nanosecond on Google to find a pirated copy of Toni Morrison's debut novel. Right here. There it is. Yeah. You can say you ban books all you want, but you can never really ban them because they're everywhere.
Starting point is 00:09:53 Banned books are also available legally through library apps and, for example, from the Brooklyn Public Library's Books Unbanned program that's now lending to teens anywhere in the nation. Heather Hall from Oklahoma says she's thrilled that her 12-year-old daughter, who's exploring her sexuality, can access not only books, but also a librarian who can talk with her freely. She was so encouraging and so sweet to her. It's just been really huge to have access to the conversations with adults that are very accepting, I started crying. Others are also filling in the gap, not only for the books that have been banned,
Starting point is 00:10:29 but also for the teachers and librarians who've effectively been gagged. Heather Fleming's Missouri nonprofit has distributed thousands of free banned books. She recently started including a kind of curriculum with shipments of Nicole Hannah-Jones's book, The 1619 Project, that explores slavery and racism in America. We owe it to our kids to give them all the tools that they need in order to be full citizens of America. And so we're just hoping to continue to build even more. It hasn't gone unnoticed by groups demanding book bans that the more books are pulled from school shelves,
Starting point is 00:11:05 the more they pop up elsewhere, like a game of whack-a-mole. 100% it concerns me. I think it's so messed up that so many people want to show children all this explicit graphic content. But Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, says the group's singular focus is controlling books in schools where kids can't avoid them. Personally, she says, she hopes prosecutors will crack down on what she calls illegal distribution of pornography. They better be careful because we have federal obscenity laws. Adults are not allowed to show children pornography.
Starting point is 00:11:36 So the idea that somehow this is some virtuous effort, distribute graphic sexual violence, pedophilia, I think the law will deal with them accordingly. For their part, activists behind the guerrilla giveaways say they're undeterred. Plans are already underway for two more Ben and Jerry's banned book nooks in Florida. But ultimately, activist Adam Tritt concedes ad hoc efforts like his are just a band-aid. Books need to be in schools, he says, not only because many students lack the internet access or means to find them elsewhere, but also, Tritt says, because of the message it
Starting point is 00:12:10 sends. If it's not in the schools, they're taking away representation. And when these kids don't see themselves, they're being further marginalized. As one publisher summed it up, buying banned books and giving them away is a fine act of protest, but he'd rather see more people speaking up at school committee meetings and voting. That, he says, is a much better bet. That was NPR's Tobias Smith. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.

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