Recently, I responded to a man on linkedin who is an avid supporter of book banning. It’s ridiculous to even engage people like this. But banning books is the quickest way to render people clueless and stupid about cultural, societal issues, and human issues.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Florida ranked first in the 2023-2024 school year for book bans – more than 4500, much higher than the precious year’s 1406 book bans.
According to PEN America, “Of the 4,231 individual titles banned last school year, 39% included LGBTQ characters. In addition, 44% included characters of color and 57% had sex or sex-related content.”
Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, takes issue with the term “book banning.” Last year, he said, “Exposing the ‘book ban’ hoax is important because it reveals that some are attempting to use our schools for indoctrination. In Florida, pornographic and inappropriate materials that have been snuck into our classrooms and libraries to sexualize our students violate our state education standards.”
The man on linkedin argued that parents have the right to make the decision about what their kids read. Yes, that’s fine. What’s not fine is when someone else makes that decision. Take Lois Lowry’s young adult book The Giver. First published in 1993, it’s set in a Dystopian future, in a society where Sameness is the name of the game.
The protagonist of the story, Jonas, 12, is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the memories of the time before Sameness. Jonas struggles with concepts of the new emotions and things introduced to him, and whether they are inherently good, evil, or in between, and whether it is possible to have one without the other. The book won the Newberry Medal in 1994 and has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. It has also been one of the most frequently banned books.
As Lowry says, “Banning books is dangerous and takes away an important freedom. While parents can choose not to have their children read a book, no one should try to make that decision for others.”
With all this book banning and trump entering office in less than a month, threatening mass deportations and other horrors, it feels as if we’re about to enter a Dystopian future.
Here’s a list of frequently banned books..
Among them are titles most of us have read:
Catcher in the Rye
The Handmaid’s Tale
Animal Farm
To Kill a Mockingbird
1984
Fahrenheit 451
Lord of the Flies
Of Mice & Men
