Normally I do not write about books for kids, but after reading the story mentioned below, I’m POed enough to change my tune.
How small the minds of many Americans seem to have become.
Pen.org is a 100+-year-old organization which, according to the site, “stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.”
They recently posted an article about “.”
Picture books featuring gay or transgender characters or naked butts — human or otherwise — were among the most frequently banned in U.S. public schools in the 2023-2024 school year.
PEN America counted more than 10,000 book bans in the 2023-2024 school year affecting more than 4,000 unique titles, with about 45% of the bans occurring in Florida and 36% in Iowa. Most bans targeted young adult or adult titles, but about 2% of bans were of picture books for the youngest readers. The heartwarming penguin adoption story And Tango Makes Three was the most frequently banned picture book of the 2023-2024 school year, followed by The Family Book, a colorful board book about different types of families, and Julián is a Mermaid, about a boy who uses a curtain as a mermaid tail.
More than 10,000! What is wrong with these people? What are they afraid of?
Among the top most-banned picture books is Baseball Saved Us, by Ken Mochizuki and Dom Lee. And while it may have only be banned by three organizations, the idea that it should be banned at all is abhorrent. Those three organizations include the Mid-Prairie Community School District in Iowa; the Spencer Community School District, also in Iowa; and the Elkhorn Area School District in Wisconsin. Pen.org’s previous year’s report shows that it was similarly banned by the Clay County School District in Florida. Also banned in late 2022 was Tim Green’s Home Run (Frisco Independent School District, Texas).
God forbid young readers should be “infected” by such nonsense that saw their government imprisoning a portion of its citizens because they were deemed a national threat. I know it’s easy to look back and make these comments, decades safe from the fear of war, but facts are facts. It was a shameful part of our history and the ways things are going, who’s to say it won’t be repeated?
is available on Amazon.com,
