Welcome to Check Your Shelf. Are your coworkers as motivated by food as mine are? This afternoon, someone discovered an unopened bag of M&M’s left on the communal counter space in the staff office. Within 30 seconds, four or five additional people (including me) heard about the candy and dashed into the office to snag a handful. Sometimes, I feel like my coworkers and I are just one bad day away from roaming around the library going, “Snacks?!” “Snacks?!” “Snacks?!”
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
NYC mayor Eric Adams’ proposed budget cuts for libraries are receiving a lot of necessary pushback from the City Council.
Another Colorado library has closed due to methamphetamine contamination.
The Indianapolis Public Library board has appointed a temporary CEO while they continue their search for a permanent CEO. The community, meanwhile, continues to protest the board’s refusal to not appoint Nichelle Hayes as CEO.
Cool Library Updates
Libraries that host gender affirming closets can offer youth a space to explore their identities.
Book Adaptations in the News
Netflix scored series rights to They Both Die At the End.
Here’s a first look at Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in American Born Chinese.
Trailer for Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret?
Banned & Challenged Books
Keep an eye on these future targets for book censors.
The Freedom to Read Advocacy Institute for High Schoolers are accepting applications from students. The four-week online training will help current high schoolers push back against book bans happening in their communities.
The Biden administration is testing a new legal theory that establishes book bans as discriminatory actions.
What book bans are doing to school library purchases.
The conservatives who attacked school boards in 2022 are going after libraries.
School Library Journal’s Scales on Censorship column explains how understanding terminology will help keep LGBTQ books on shelves, and why parents shouldn’t have to know what their kids read.
Several parents are protesting Fun Home in Jacksonville ISD (TX).
“Two women who filed a complaint in a criminal investigation of books in Granbury ISD (TX) libraries told NBC 5 Investigates they only submitted it at the suggestion of the deputy constable leading the investigation.” This is an area where we DEFINITELY don’t need police involvement.
And in Granbury ISD, “the books just keep disappearing.”
The Victoria City Council (TX) is considering new collection development policies for the public library’s juvenile and young adult collections. Specifically, the responsibility for acquiring juvenile titles (for readers 17 and under) would rest with the director, and cannot include “explicit images, illustrations, representations or written descriptions of sexual conduct.”
Clay County School District (FL) elects to remove five books from elementary school libraries and restrict them to only the junior high or high school libraries.
Florida lawmakers consider extending the Don’t Say Gay law up to sixth grade.
I’m going to use Kelly Jensen’s words here: Robert Judge, the President of the Lafayette Public Library Board of Control (LA) is an absolute ghoul. (Brief context: He posted a heartless comment on a grieving parent’s Facebook post, which talked about their child dying by suicide.)
In other Robert Judge news, he recently had Melanie Brevis, a member of Lafayette Citizens Against Censorship, removed from a board meeting, although the reason for the removal is not clear.
The Herman School Committee (ME) voted against the inclusion of a book rating system proposed by a group of parents.
Gender Queer and Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide for Teens will now be kept in the guidance counselor’s office at Charles M. Sumner Learning Campus (ME), and would require parental permission for students to access them. This is just as restrictive as removing the book entirely, considering how many students will likely not feel safe asking for permission to access these books.
The Ferguson Public Library (CT) has declared itself a book sanctuary.
The Crawford County School District (PA) has introduced a policy that would “prohibit any material with explicitly written, visual or visually implied depictions of sexual acts or simulations of such acts, as well as visual depictions of nudity with the exception of anatomical diagrams and classical works of art.”
The Central Bucks (PA) school board adopted a ridiculous policy that prevents district employees from advocating for or displaying items that reflect partisan, political, or social policy agendas.
Protestors clash over the drag queen story hour at the Canton branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library (MD).
Wilkes County (NC) school officials receive mixed reactions from their decision to remove Looking for Alaska from school libraries. All this nonsense around a single sex scene that takes up a grand total of two pages.
Wilson County (TN) is still debating whether or not to remove The Perks of Being a Wallflower from local high schools.
This Missouri high school senior wrote an op-ed about banned books, saying that he wants to be challenged as a reader, and he wants to be treated as an adult.
Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders bans the word “Latinx” on her first day in office. Glad to see real progress is being made here. /s
A proposed Arkansas bill would define any sort of drag performances as “adult-oriented businesses.”
More than 100 students at Big Walnut High School (OH) walked out in protest of a proposed book ban of over 20 titles.
Riverside (IL) trustees offer support to library officials, who blocked a recent ban request for Gender Queer.
Indiana lawmakers have revived a bill that would make librarians criminally liable for distributing material deemed harmful to minors. The bill’s supporters say that this would only target material deemed pornographic or obscene under state statute, but given how flexible the definition of “pornography” has become, it’s safe to say that this bill would likely be used to remove LGBTQ books and serve as an intimidation tactic for teachers and librarians.
The Hamilton East Public Library (IN) board voted to relocate the book Making a Baby from the children’s section to the adult section, which was challenged by a patron back in October.
Floyd County Library (IN) had a packed board meeting about the picture book Prince and Knight being used for a recent storytime event. No action has been taken.
The Coloma Board of Education (IN) responds to parents who are upset that seventh graders were gifted copies of Looking for Alaska. Some parents have even filed police reports, saying that the teacher involved was responsible for distribution of pornography to minors.
A newly introduced Nebraska bill would require school districts “to make learning materials available for public inspection and create a process for parents to object to books in the school library.”
The Keene Public Library (NE) has been unable to review Sex is a Funny Word because the person who checked the book out refuses to return the book.
Kearney Board of Education (NE) voted to keep four challenged books on library shelves, and they’ve voted to suspend their book challenge policy. As one trustee said, “This has become politicized, and we have better things to do.”
The Valley City Public Library board (ND) heard arguments for and against the removal of Let’s Talk About It, and apparently asked for a show of hands from members of the public to see who supported relocating the book and who supported the outright removal of the book. However, no final decision has been made yet.
North Dakota has two proposed bills that would make it a Class B misdemeanor “for any business establishment where minors can go, to offer books with images showing nudity or partial nudity.” And as bad as that is, neither bill includes any exclusions for public libraries.
Wyoming state representative Jeanette Ward is pushing to expand the definition of “child pornography” in an attempt to censor school libraries.
In additional student walkout news, hundreds of Temecula (CA) high school students walked out to protest a recent critical race theory ban.
The Bookshelf in Ontario had an incident with a man who tried to steal an armload of anti-racist books from the shelves, calling the store co-founder a racist for having them available in the first place.
Teaching banned books: Melissa by Alex Gino.
A banned book reading club guide for New Kid by Jerry Craft.
Why student voices should be central to school libraries.
I’ve seen this article making the rounds, and I absolutely hate the “both sides” narrative going on here.
Books & Authors in the News
The Library of Congress has named Meg Medina as the new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.
Hong Kong police arrest six people at a Lunar New Year shopping fair for selling a “seditious” book about a series of riots that occurred in Hong Kong in 2019 and 2020.
Numbers & Trends
Prince Harry’s memoir shattered records by selling more than 1.4 million copies in its first day.
These are the bestselling books of 2022.
The best-selling books of the week, according to all the lists.
Award News
The 2023 Philip K. Dick Award nominees have been announced.
Readers can help choose the best LGBTQ books of 2022.
Pop Cultured
Parks & Rec actress Retta is starring in a bookish crime drama on NBC called Murder By the Book, where she will play a big city Instagram book reviewer who becomes an amateur detective.
17 TV shows that are full of bonkers plot twists.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
These are some of the new words added to the Scrabble dictionary, so now you have some support when your opponent says you can’t play the word “jedi!”
On the Riot
Top tips for weeding when you have 100 other things to do.
How this Rioter survived the closure of their library.
The top 10 hardest words for Americans to pronounce.
“Read what’s there:” How this Rioter learned to avoid reading shortcuts.
Here’s Gilbert supervising as I KonMari-ed my bookshelves the other day. (Actually, he’s just ticked that I took up the entire couch with my book sorting.)
Okay, friends, I’ll check in again next week. Have a relaxing weekend!
—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.