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Books

More Books Than Ever Targeted For Bans (sherwood.news) 250

An anonymous reader writes: More books were called to be banned in 2023 across US schools and libraries than any other year on record, according to a new report from the American Library Association (ALA). Building on a surge that started in 2021, some 4,240 unique book titles were challenged last year -- a 65% increase from 2022, and the highest figure documented in over 20 years of tracking.

Although the number of affected titles has grown dramatically, as groups increasingly target multiple books at once, overall censorship demands dropped slightly, down 2% to 1,247. Literature concerning race and gender was particularly contested, with autobiographical graphic novel Gender Queer named the most challenged library book of the year.

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More Books Than Ever Targeted For Bans

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  • Bible? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @04:33PM (#64384434)
    Ever read the Christian Bible? Man, that thing is full of sex and violence.
    • Ever read the Christian Bible?

      Nah, but I've seen the movie. Was just okay.

    • Re:Bible? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @05:25PM (#64384624)
      The Bible's potential use for payback has been not only recognized, but successfully exploited:

      Utah district bans Bible in elementary and middle schools 'due to vulgarity or violence' [apnews.com].

    • I mean, imagine, a book about a guy who kills almost all humans at some point, gets people to sleep with their daughters, rewards people for sending their daughters out to get raped, commits genocide on more than one occasion and eventually sends out his son to die a torturous death, and as we can see pointlessly because the reason he had his son tortured and killed didn't even come to fruition. And don't tell me he couldn't have known, that guy is supposedly omniscient.

      And that's supposedly the good guy in

  • Be Kind. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @04:38PM (#64384454)

    They're doing the very best with the brains they've been given.

  • by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @04:41PM (#64384466)

    In an introduction to 'Ender's Game' he reports that the book was being banned simply because it used the 'N' word - despite the fact that it was in an appropriate and non-racist way.

    Now he's getting cancelled for his rejection of gay relationships.

    • Sounds like an author who has just been consistently behind-the-times.

      • Or alternatively: one who is not blown by fashion. As the rapid delegitimation of trans activists for abusing children by not doing enough talking before putting them on life changing drugs shows, sometimes the latest fashion is deeply flawed

        • Perhaps instead of waging a culture war with the entire LGBTQ+ community by banning books and calling us various negative epithets, it would be more productive to engage on the single issue of the appropriateness of prescribing hormone blockers to teenagers? Upon that single issue, you might find that many of us aren't actually your adversary.

          But the truth is, it's never really about just that one single issue. It's ultimately a desire to see all the "alphabet people" back in the closet, and the latest Li

    • I'm genuinely curious as to what you mean by "cancelled" given the still got a deal with a publisher and still publishing, and you can find his books in many book shops and libraries., and last I checked, still streaming on Netflix.

      It really feels l seems that "cancelled" means "getting criticism" and calls to end cancelling and cancel culture are therefore calls to prevent people voicing their opinions.

  • Teaching children to read & write, math, history, economics, geophraphy/geology, wood & metal shop, basic things they need to know to get through life for either towards college or a trade school, or military service, leave things like religion and sexuality to the parents, some topics the schools need to stay out of
    • I don't know, wood shop is pretty risque

    • leave things like religion and sexuality to the parents, some topics the schools need to stay out of

      Except that schools do teach human sexuality. When I went to middle school, it was part of what was referred to as "health class". It required a parental permission form (otherwise you'd be assigned alternate work) and the curriculum was obviously created in some alternate universe where LGBTQ+ people didn't exist.

      • Biology, and I can define a woman/female, a woman/female is born with a vagina, ovaries & uterus, and anyone born with a penis & testicles is a male, schools should not be messing with other people's children when it comes to religion and sexuality,
        • Heterosexual sex isn't always done for reproduction, and if you're teaching students about condoms you've gone firmly into the sex as a pleasurable act realm. At that point you're just being bigoted by omitting that two men and two women can do that, too.

          But perhaps you're one of those "abstinence only" folks who truly believes that if you tell raging-hormone teenagers just to keep it in their pants, they'll obey without question. Good luck with that approach.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      leave things like religion and sexuality to the parents

      Thing is, those are the things parents are typically least qualified to teach. A parent teaching religion is call indoctrination because it will never, ever be balanced or complete. A parent teaching sexuality is likely to give such helpful advice as "don't do it", and "only do it with who want you to do it with, the way I want you to do it."

      Parents shouldn't be relied on to teach topics where bias matters.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        You are generalizing to the extreme here. "Every parent on the planet, including all athiest and left leaning parents, when educating their child about religion, is automatically attempting indoctrination, and were explicitly trying to be as unbalanced as possible"

        Also are parents "Likely" to give unhelpful advice about sexuality? This may shock you, but shitty parents are thankfully in the minority, the internet amplifies the crazies.

        Your entire comment read's like it was targetted at a very specific perso

    • by dskoll ( 99328 )

      Uh... sexuality is a pretty basic thing you need to know about in life. Things like safe sex, contraception, consent... these are fundamental to a healthy life. And parents don't always teach them properly.

      Religion, I agree, should not be taught ins chools. Leave that nonsense to the parents, should they choose to indoctrinate their kids.

      • Things like safe sex, contraception, consent... these are fundamental to a healthy life.

        (emphasis mine)

        I'm convinced the people who are opposed to sex ed being taught in schools are truly the ones who are trying to hook up with teenagers that weren't taught any better. I had enough sense at 13 to tell the online pedos to go jump in a piranha infested river, but I was mature and responsible for my age - by and large though, most adolescents aren't.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Religion is fascinating and critical for understanding much of history, government and society. The problem is that religion classes usually just get a priest from the locally dominant cult to come and preach rather than teaching anything useful.

    • If the books offend you, then you can always not read them.

      • by g01d4 ( 888748 )
        You also can't read books the library doesn't stock. A library has only so much shelf space, and how it's being filled is the issue.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      leave things like religion and sexuality to the parents, some topics the schools need to stay out of

      Those topics are even more important to be in school, as parents will often massively misrepresent reality to children and often outright lie to their children. Personally, I do not know an act much more evil than indoctrinating children with religion or giving them unhealthy and damaging ideas about sexuality. Essentially mind-rape and should be punishable as such. Your children are not your property to do with as you please. You have no right to screw them, mind or body.

      • Indoctrinating your offspring is a core basic tenet of every religion. It's basically the oldest form of the "pass this letter on or something bad will happen!" chain letter.

        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Sure. Does not make it any less evil.

          • evil

            Insidious is more like it. The downside of forced indoctrination being hardcoded into nearly all religions is that when you're advocating for people to not indoctrinate their rug rats, you're by extension also expecting them not to follow part of their religion. That typically doesn't go over well.

            • by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Indoctrinating children that cannot give informed consent? Plain, direct evil. I do agree that the religiously deranged think they cannot do evil. Well, they can. And it is time society leaves the dark ages and calls them out for it.

    • At least not in any sane society. Or any society that wants to have long-term stability.

      What's your describing is a vocational school designed to create little worker bees for corporations.

      If short-term profits are your only goal then yeah have at it. The problem is is you're creating a generation of people that can only obey. People completely incapable of critical thinking and highly vulnerable to abuse and demagogues.

      If you don't see the problem with that then you probably went to the kind of
  • Although I live in Canada, which is often derided as less friendly to freedom of expression than the United States, I am proud that my city's library removed precisely zero [www.cbc.ca] of the materials that were challenged.

  • That comes with a slow slide into totalitarianism.

  • Would you object to a school library stocking the likes of The Turner Diaries?

    Yes?

    Then get over yourself and this tendentious prattle about "banned books".

    Some books (and The Turner Diaries is bodaciously one of them) should not be stocked in school libraries.

  • Banning books, is not the same as refusal to spend public funds and include a book in a public school library.

    Everyone gets up in arms when they hear the words "banning books" when the reality is that graphically sexual and non-age appropriate books are being denied purchase in primary school libraries.

    These are not the same things.
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2024 @07:56PM (#64385076)
    Every year they put out a list of banned books. Beau of the fifth column on YouTube covers that list every year.

    There's three observations from this year's list.

    First there are more banned books than there are requests to ban books. What that means is there's an organized effort to ban books. It's not just somebody's mom getting upset. It's an organization.

    Second virtually all of them are not about stuff like war or death or torture. You can still find Muen Kamphf no problem. The top 10 are all about lgbtq+ love stories and most of the other books are about that too.

    And finally it's not nearly as interesting to read the list anymore because well, it's all the same kind of books being banned by the same kind of people.

    You can find the video if you want to see everything but the bottom line is this has nothing to do with protecting kids and everything to do with somebody enforcing their beliefs on your kids.
    • First there are more banned books than there are requests to ban books. What that means is there's an organized effort to ban books. It's not just somebody's mom getting upset. It's an organization.

      Gee, who do we know who is extremely wealthy and blames a school for supposedly turning his kid trans? Hmm. [today.com]

      As they say, follow the money...

  • Why bother with banning books? Is much easier and cost effective to just burn them in the first place. /sarcasm

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