Welcome to Check Your Shelf. On top of everything else going on in the world, I suddenly found my Twitter feed full of reactions to Nancy Pearl’s comments at ALA. If you somehow missed what happened, she made this statement on a panel about book banning and censorship: “What did I not want to add in the collection? Personally, I did not want to add Holocaust-denying books. That was offensive to me. Did I think we needed them? Sad to say, yes.” I don’t have a ton of articles to link to, as most of the discourse is happening on Twitter, but needless to say it’s a mess, especially because Jason Reynolds, who was also on the panel, received a disproportionate amount of negative attention for Nancy Pearl’s remarks. I will link to articles as I see them, because I think this controversy is highly representative of the old guard’s desire to cling to this outdated, inaccurate, and harmful notion of libraries as neutral. As always, LIBRARIES. AREN’T. NEUTRAL.
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
ALA released a statement condemning threats of violence in libraries. No commitments, no actionable steps, just another crew member on the Titanic writing a strongly-worded letter to the iceberg.
Due to COVID-related staffing shortages, the Seattle Public Library will be temporarily reducing its hours.
Cool Library Updates
The Boise Library has hired its first mental-health coordinator.
NYPL opens a “virtual branch” on Instagram and launches a reading recommendation project using augmented reality technology.
Book Adaptations in the News
Lionsgate scores film adaptation rights for Kayvion Lewis’ upcoming YA novel, Thieves Gambit.
Kate Winslet is executive producing and starring in the HBO limited series adaptation of Trust by Hernan Diaz.
Former San Francisco Chronicle reporter Lizzie Johnson is partnering with Jamie Lee Curtis’ production company to develop Johnson’s book, Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, for film.
Jason Schwartzman joins the cast of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Paula Hawkins’ novella, Blind Spot, gets picked up for a TV adaptation.
Here’s the official trailer for Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between.
And here’s the teaser trailer for On the Come Up.
The 10 best TV crime dramas that were adapted from books.
Banned & Challenged Books
A look at the long line of hatred and intimidation of queer people in schools and libraries just within the last MONTH.
This is an older article, but one worth revisiting: how faith-based, right-wing money is waging war through book challenges.
Dixfield (ME) school district elects to keep Gender Queer on high school shelves.
Gorham (ME) educators defend controversial posters and books about sexuality.
The Smithtown Library on Long Island has reversed its decision to remove all Pride-related displays from the children’s sections. Meanwhile, Governor Kathy Hochul is planning to investigate the libraries that removed the LGBTQ displays in the first place.
Parents are complaining about a RuPaul biography geared towards children at the Cragin Memorial Library in Colchester, CT.
A divided Pennsylvania Senate panel advances two bills limiting sexual content in public schools. (Pennsylvania people, call your representatives.)
The Council Rock (PA) School Board elects to include The Giver and In the Time of the Butterflies in next year’s curriculum, despite opposition from several board members.
A Maryland librarian is being charged with hate crimes after admitting to vandalizing two libraries in Prince George’s County last week. He spray painted the word “Groomer” across the front entrances of both libraries.
The Central Rappahannock Regional Library (VA) board is holding a special meeting to discuss concerns over content displayed on the library system’s mobile app.
The Roanoke (VA) County School Board unanimously approved a new media review policy which requires multiple librarians to read and meet to discuss which books belong in school libraries. In other words, this is a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars and staff time/expertise.
Lawyers say that the “defective” Virginia obscenity claims should be tossed. However, a pair of Virginia politicians have now sued Maia Kobabe and Oni-Loin Forge over Gender Queer, saying that the graphic memoir violates Virginia’s obscenity laws.
“I felt very unsafe.” Parents speak out after the Proud Boys show up at a Pride Story Time at the Pine Valley Library in Wilmington, NC.
And not surprisingly, officials and advocates are offering differing versions of what happened when the Proud Boys disrupted the event.
Wilkes County (NC) School admins have decided to end the school’s participation in the Battle of the Books program, likely from local criticism about the books included on the elementary and middle school reading lists.
The CatholicVote “Hide the Pride” movement takes credit for the disappearance of Columbia (SC)’s library Pride display and subsequent threatening letter to library staff.
A Walker County (GA) mother addresses the school board over “vulgar” books, except her kids are currently homeschooled and don’t actually attend that school district.
The Frisco ISD (TX) is changing two policies regarding library book objections. Particularly noteworthy is their use of the Texas Penal Code’s definition of “obscenity,” instead of looking at a contested passage within the context of the book as a whole, which means that even one paragraph may be enough to deem a book “obscene,” according to Daniel Stockton, the Executive Director of Government and Legal Affairs.
A conservative pastor is the latest appointee to the Lafayette (LA) Parish Library Board.
Pride Month displays at the Mandeville library in Louisiana draw complaints from patrons.
A Hillsborough County (FL) school board candidate defends book bans and CRT attacks, despite offering little evidence for either.
A secret Moms for Liberty audio recording captures threatening rhetoric targeting a school librarian in Arkansas.
The Madison County (TN) “culture war” is a fight worth having.
A StoryWalk book (It’s Okay to Be a Unicorn) was removed by an unknown citizen in DeWitt, Iowa.
The Oconomowoc Area School District (WI) is involved in a dispute and potential lawsuit over several books related to sex and gender, including It’s Perfectly Normal and The 57 Bus.
The threat of GOP-led book bans looms over the 2022 Wisconsin elections.
The St. Joseph County Public Library (IN) released a statement regarding the Proud Boys disrupting a Rainbow Storytime event on Monday.
Independence, Missouri removes the book Cats vs. Robots from elementary school libraries because it includes a non-binary character.
Nixa (MO) high school students write about how censorship of books fosters ignorance. The paper also elected to grant the students anonymity to protect them from retaliation.
A Forest Hills (OH) school board meeting ends with a resolution against critical race theory.
The Portsmouth (OH) Public Library board hears public comments about their so-called “controversial” Pride display, and is now seeking legal counsel about how to proceed.
The 22 books that the Nampa (ID) School Board voted to remove last month will continue to remain in storage until the board comes up with a more formal book challenging process.
Some Montana State Library commissioners are concerned because the new logo’s color scheme is “too LGBTQ,” which means that it contains the colors red, yellow, green, and blue. I am reminded of a patron at my last library who had used a permanent marker to cover the entire front of his library card because the colors were “too gay.” THEY ARE COLORS. THEY ARE THE RESULT OF DIFFERENT WAVELENGTHS OF LIGHT HITTING THE CONES IN OUR EYES AND THESE SIGNALS BEING INTERPRETED BY OUR BRAINS. THERE IS NO SECRET AGENDA HERE.
Payson (AZ) Town Councilor Jim Ferris suggested that the town drop out of the library district and lose hundreds of thousands in funding, all so the library didn’t have to carry the book Sex is a Funny Word. When questioned further, Ferris admitted he hadn’t actually read the book he so strongly objected to.
How Milken Community Schools (CA) “marginalized a marginalized voice.”
Drag Queen Vanilla Meringue skips the Drag Queen Story Time at the Berkeley (CA) Public Library due to safety concerns.
A Canadian librarian responded to threats against her Drag Queen Story Hour by adding a second event. THIS is what I want to see more libraries doing!
Canadian libraries in general are being hit by a wave of hate, threats, and right-wing groups protesting all-age drag events.
Drag story hour hosts, under attack, dig in their heels. (I dislike this headline because “dig in their heels” suggests unwarranted stubbornness, but the article looks at the ways in which queer people have been under increased attack during Pride Month festivities at schools and libraries.)
Related: drag queens are not the ones sexualizing Drag Story Hour.
And yet, some lawmakers are looking to crack down on parents who bring their children to drag shows, even suggesting the termination of parental rights in some cases.
Consultants and activists share meaningful ways employers can help their workers with the recent wave of anti-LGBTQ bills and hate crimes.
Books & Authors in the News
Essential reading: literary voices respond to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
Authors are protesting Amazon’s eBook policy that allows users to read and return titles.
Philip Pullman leads an outcry after Sheffield Hallam University withdraws its English Literature degree.
The troubling legacy of the Lolita story, 60 years on.
Numbers & Trends
Post-Roe, publishers scramble to meet the political moment.
Have we reached peak celebrity memoir?
We may finally have reached the saturation point for tell-all books from Trump aides.
Best-selling self help books and the missing women phenomenon.
TikTok and Barnes & Noble have teamed up for the #BookTokChallenge.
Award News
Congrats to the 2022 Locus Award winners!
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
Taylor Swift debuts her folksy soundtrack song for Where the Crawdads Sing.
The Strand now has its own in-house coffee shop.
On the Riot
The subversive verse of Shel Silverstein.
How to start a BookTok.
How does Goodreads make money? (Hint: it’s your personal data.)
What the heck is Twitterature?
How reading changed for this Rioter after their ADHD diagnosis.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Here is Dini looking sassy and regal as he surveys his kingdom, and says “Hi” to his kitty friends who live in the apartment across from us.
I have a longer-than-usual weekend coming up, because Tuesday is my birthday and I always treat myself to a couple days off. But not surprisingly I’m feeling far from festive this year…so for Independence Day, I’m going to contact my reps, make a donation, and wear my “Nevertheless She Persisted” t-shirt. I hope the world doesn’t get drastically worse between now and then.
Peace out, y’all.
—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.
