That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America - by Amanda Jones

 

I first heard of Amanda Jones last fall when I attended an online workshop about banned books. Jones was one of the speakers and described being targeted by a radical a right-wing group for comments she made at a local public library board meeting. 

Jones was an award-winning school librarian who was celebrated in her home town of Watson, Lousiana where she still lived, and worked as a middle school librarian. When she learned that "book content" was on the Board agenda in in the summer of July 2022 she went to speak as a citizen against book banning and censorship. And although dozens of other citizens also spoke out against book bans and censorship, Jones was the only one who was harassed. The trolls made up, and repeated, lies about her calling her a pedophile and "groomer", and indicating that she advocated teaching anal sex to middle school children.

There were two things Jones said about book banning that I disagree with (but promise not to personally attack her for them). One is that "all book banners seem to be Republican...". While I agree that the current wave of book banners have a decidedly right-wing bent, it is absolutely true that book banners come in all all political stripes. One example of a "liberal" challenge is described in this article from the New York Times. It also appears to be the case that left-wing warriors have been successful in preemptively censoring work, as we saw with Jack Gantos' A Suicide Bomber Sits in a Library. 

Jones also, incorrectly asserts that "Librarians do not purchase pornography" Well, yes, they do. And while you probably won't find "issues of Playboy next to Time magazine" in your local public library, some libraries, do indeed carry Playboy. A quick search of the WorldCat database tells me, for instance, that I can see it at the Boston Public Library (among others).

Overall, Jones' work is heartfelt and introspective. She is honest about her questioning of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She loved them as a child, but re-reading them in the twenty-first century cast a new light on them.

My realization was a bitter pill to swallow because of how much I loved the books as a child. But the books are not what I thought they were as a child. Strip away my nostagia, and I knew the books could be harmful. Is it censorship if I take them off the shelf though?

Her decision to remove the books from her library was ultimately based on the collection development policy (which is what should always be used) which indicated that books that haven't circulated in five years be weeded from the collection. "The kids just weren't interested in them anymore, and I needed the shelf space for books that they kids would check out".

Jones also rightly points out that kids are not going to the library to look for porn, when they "have full access to the internet in the palm of their hand" and that politicians who are pandering to a hate-filled base to attack libraries and librarians are ignoring spaces where real sexual abuse is taking place, often in religious spaces.

Jones spoke with John Chrastka from EveryLibrary about her book. You can find the interview here.

Jones' homepage can be found here. 

Banned Books Week runs from September 22 to September 28, 2024.