All About the Banned Book Boxes Project (with Aria!)

Wow.

I had no idea about some of those statistics.

Like I didn't know Texas was second in the nation.

I mean, it makes sense, but that's just like hard to hear about all those books that are just.

I know,

especially as someone who didn't grow up in Texas, it was really astonishing to me and something that like caught my attention when I moved here and when I was able to do more research on it.

And at the beginning of my project, I spoke with a lot of people who were involved in the issue, from public school teens to librarians to professors to bookstore managers and more.

And all the perspectives they had to share with me about the issue were really interesting, too, because I know why reading is important to me, but it's always amazing to hear why it's important to other people or how it shaped other people's stories in their lives.

And that just kind of reinforced my commitment to to doing something about book bands and even to getting the word out because I think a lot of people don't even realize what book bands are.

And I think there are kind of two sides to book bands.

There are book bands that are done in like public libraries across the nation and then book bands in public schools.

And that's kind of what I'm tackling since we're teens and that feels a little bit closer to home to us.

And the way that works is just when any kind of parent or political pressure group tries to restrict access or remove access to a certain literature, like a type of book based on its content or based on something inappropriate in it or what they deem is inappropriate in it and try to kind of remove access to that book in public school libraries, in curriculum, from teachers' classrooms.

And of course, that's harmful for so many reasons.

Yeah, I bet growing up in Philadelphia, this was not as prevalent of an issue at all.

I feel like growing up in Texas, I've known that book bans exist, but I don't think it's ever registered as much to me how impactful they really are like how many books are truly banned and sometimes I'll hear that a book is banned that I'm like there is no reason why that book should be banned like

yeah I think that's something that surprises a lot of people when I start talking about book bans and they're like oh so you mean like Mein Kampf is banned and I'm like no I mean like Charlotte's Web is banned isn't that crazy and people just don't realize um I guess the shocking like range of titles that are banned and some for really ridiculous reasons and that's part of what I try to highlight but then there's also some trends that we see in book bans that most books that are banned feature characters of color or feature queer identities or disabled characters or people struggling through times of grief or abuse or hardships like that and these are topics that are really really important I think for people to be able to explore and to be represented in literature and I think books are some of the like safest and most accessible ways to access something different than you especially somewhere like Dallas where everyone drives everywhere and maybe if you go to a certain school you live in a certain neighborhood you don't always interact with people with different life stories than you and books are some of the easiest ways to get out of your own bubble and see something a little bit different than what you're experiencing and at the same time for people who are experiencing those hardships to be represented that way in literature can be really valuable and comforting and just bring a lot of joy and representation to them and make them feel less alone.

So I think that that kind of duality of functions that books serve is really really important.

Exactly, like there's nothing better than finding like a character that you relate to in a book and so when books are banned that just takes away a child's opportunity to see themselves represented on the page.

For

sure.