#WASTED BOOK CONTROVERSY PROFESSIONAL#

By contrast, in targeting high school libraries, conservative book banners seek to restrict what individual students may choose to read on their own, disregarding the judgment of school librarians who carefully select materials according to professional standards. But de-emphasizing problematic classics does not generally entail removing the books from library collections.

Concerns about racist language and portrayals might well lead communities to seek alternatives to the teaching of works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. These include past efforts by progressives to reorient language arts instruction. Beyond telegraphing disapproval, book bans serve the interests of groups that have long sought to dismantle public education and shut down conversations about important issues.ĭebates about the suitability of reading materials in school are nothing new. Claims about 'sexual content' are a pretext for erasing the stories that tell Black, Latinx, queer and other non-dominant kids that they matter and belong. Tellingly, those are not the books under attack. If you were to stack up all the books with sexual content in any library, the tallest stack by far would be about white, straight characters. What distinguishes the targeted titles, though, is not their sexual content but that they overwhelmingly center the experiences of BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people. Book banners often cite 'sexually explicit content' as their reason for objecting to books in high schools. Instead, they are part of an orchestrated effort to sow suspicion of public schools as scarily 'woke' and to signal opposition to certain identities and topics. These book bans do not reflect spontaneous parental concern. (See for a continually updated database of challenges and bans and PEN America's Banned in the USA reports for April 2022 and September 2022 for further context.) The statistics for 2021, which represent only a fraction of actual removals, reflect a more than 600% increase in challenges and removals as compared to 2020. The latest wave of book banning exceeds anything ever documented by librarian or free-speech groups. In the wake of the 2020 presidential elections, right-wing groups pivoted from a national defeat to 'local' issues. It appeared on reading lists across the country as a recommendation for ambitious young readers ready to face disquieting aspects of the American experience. Would readers recoil from the harshness of my characters' realities? Or would they recognize how the novel invites connections between those realities and an ongoing reckoning with racialized violence and police brutality? To my relief, the novel received glowing reviews, earned multiple literary awards, and was named to 'best of the year' lists by Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal. When Out of Darkness was first published, I braced for objections. Then, as now, young people struggle mightily for joy, love and dignity. The book portrays friendship, loving family, community and healthy relationships because they, too, are part of the characters' world. I sought to show the depths of harm inflicted on some in this country without sensationalizing that history. As I wrote, the teenagers' circumstances began to tighten, noose-like, around their lives and love, leading to still more tragedy. But to engage honestly with the realities of the time and of my characters' lives, I had to grapple with systemic racism, personal prejudice, sexual abuse and domestic violence.

This tragic but little-known historical event serves as the backdrop for a fictional star-crossed romance between a Black teenager and a young Latina who has just arrived in the area.Īs I researched the novel, I imagined the explosion as its most devastating event. I drew my inspiration for the novel from an actual school disaster: the 1937 New London school explosion that killed hundreds in an East Texas oil town just 20 minutes from my childhood home. As we reach the end of 2022, it has been banned in at least 29 school districts across the country.įrom the earliest stages of writing, I knew Out of Darkness would be difficult - for me, and for readers. At the beginning of 2021, Out of Darkness had been on library shelves for over five years without a single challenge or complaint. Hate mail and threats overwhelmed the inboxes where I once had received invitations for author visits and appreciative notes from readers. Author Interviews Banned Books: Author Ashley Hope Pérez on finding humanity in the 'darkness'Īttacks unfolded, not just on my writing but also on young people's right to read it.

Wasted book controversy