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LGBTQ themes found in half of the past decade's 20 most-banned books

LGBTQ themes found in half of the past decade's 20 most-banned books

LGBTQ themes found in half of the past decade's 20 most-banned books
Sep 29, 2020 2 mins, 8 secs

Books with LGBTQ themes — from popular children's book “And Tango Makes Three” to Pulitzer Prize-winner “The Color Purple” — are prominently featured on the American Library Association’s newly released list of the Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books of the past decade.

The list was released earlier this week by the library association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, which has been tracking efforts to ban books from libraries and schools for the past 30 years.

In 2019, for example, eight of the 10 most-banned books on the library association’s annual list were challenged due to LGBTQ content, and in 2018, more than half were challenged for this reason.

However, she said, libraries regularly review community complaints against LGBTQ books and “more often than not” find the books to be developmentally and age-appropriate, as well as in line with the library’s collection development policies and leave the books on the shelves.

The library association, however, stresses that its latest list only represents a fraction of the books challenged over the last year as about 82 to 97 percent of challenges remain unreported.

“In fact, public libraries exist to serve everyone in the community and work very intentionally toward creating diverse collections that reflect the lives of everyone in the community — even those who are in the minority or who are marginalized groups in the community, and that will mean that there are books there that reflect the lives of LGBTQ families and children, and will be available to them.”.

Daniel Haack, author of “Prince & Knight,” which came in at No.91 on the library association's latest list, said one of his goals in writing the book was “showing in a kid-friendly and universal way that gay people are just as capable of being the hero and just as worthy of finding love.”.

“No one should be able to keep a book out of a public school or library because they don't want it in their own house,” she said.

Since publishing her book in 2008, Brannen said she has received messages from people who have called her book "filth," "garbage," "the product of Satan" and even claimed to have taken the book from their local libraries to burn it.

In the event a particular book is destroyed or stolen from a public library, Caldwell-Stone said most libraries have systems to identify missing books and the funds to quickly replace them

To ensure that LGBTQ books remain on school and public library bookshelves, Caldwell-Stone suggests that citizens attend school board meetings and library board meetings, and pay attention to coverage on social and local media

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