Freedom-to-Read Heroes Brilliantly Address Book Bans
Mar 07, 2024
Still image above & video below are property of CBS News. From 60 Minutes Liberty-minded Iraq combat veteran mom and banned book volunteer reader, Ruth-Naomi James.
Banned Book Week isn't until September 22 - 28 this year, but the past few days have been a boon for great reporting that surfaces book ban resistance heroes.
Volunteers in Beaufort actually read all the books
The good people of Beaufort, South Carolina addressed the issue of book banning head-on with amazing practicality, sensitivity — and a thirst for facts.
Their school district had already put reading decisions squarely in the hands of the parents — and there had been nary a peep of protest on any book. But when a right-wing radical group circulated a list of 97 books that should be banned, the School Board powers that be took a truly great step — they enlisted volunteers to read the books in question.
"The more you know [about peoples' stories], the more you see the power of diversity." — Dick Geier, US Army Colonel, Ret.; Vice Chair, Beaufort County School Board
Watch the full story in this 60 Minutes segment "97 Books," which made this booklover well up with joy at the reading advocacy. My heroes now include Scott Pelley, and all the producers of the piece, including Beaufort County resident and book reading volunteer, Henry Schuster, Sarah Turcotte, broadcast associate, Michelle Karim, editors Warren Lustig and Peter M. Berman.
RuPaul and Allstora give away L.G.B.T.Q.-inclusive books across the country
As reported by Amanda Holpuch in The New York Times, Drag Race reality show star RuPaul announced "that he was one of three business partners behind the new online bookseller, Allstora." Alarmed at increased anti-drag foment and movements to limit healthcare for transgendered people — as well as book bans and violent anti-book threats — the partners' online retailer promotes underrepresented authors.
RuPaul with his Rainbow Book Bus — destined for cities where books and drag are under challenge. Photo: Allstora.
To launch the bookstore — which incorporates the RuPaul Book Club and is, at the time of this post, offering 50% the first order, the partners will send their brightly colored Rainbow Book Bus across the country in 2024 and give away 10,000 challenged books in cities that are particularly threatened by book and trans censorship.
To learn about the bigger mission, read the full article, "RuPaul Is Sending a Rainbow Bus to Give Away Books Targeted by Bans," here.
Personal notes — brush with Beaufort, common sense librarian
Before Pat Conroy, the beloved and prolific Southern novelist, was one of Doubleday's most successful bestselling authors during my seven-years at the imprint, he taught English and psychology at Beaufort High School. According to Conroy's official biography, after he left teaching to write full time, his "loyalties remained with those still in the classroom: throughout his career ... he was always quick to assist teachers in any way he could, from meeting with classes to defending teachers in debates over censorship."
"There are no wrong books ... What's wrong is the fear of them."
—Bernard Malamud, The Fixer (thanks to Scott Pelley)
My own parents didn't censor my reading (okay, it was the days of no-trouble-kid=low-attention parenting). So, between Scholastic Book Clubs, an all-ages Bookmobile that parked at the end of my street, and my Aunt Libby's prodigious paperback bookshelf, I consumed everything from Anne Frank's diary, to Jacqueline Susann's seminal Valley of the Dolls to the creepy novel-turned-movie, The Sentinel by Jeffrey Konvitz (despite being a religious Roman Catholic, Aunt Libby was partial to Papal conspiracy novels).
But it was the Bookmobile librarian who stopped my clueless, pre-teen self from checking out a book that caught my eye on the "Adult Popular Books" shelf. She offered a gentle, "Your mother needs to come in to help you check that one out." I guess Erica Jong's Fear of Flying wasn't popular with the kids.