Welcome to Check Your Shelf. At work, I’m cramming my brain full of director-level procedures. At home, I’m freaking out because I leave on vacation in a week and a half. Thank the library gods I have fantastic coworkers who are willing to step in in a major way while I’m gone for two weeks, but the timing is definitely not how I would have planned it.
Don’t forget to apply to be an Editorial Operations Associate at Book Riot by August 8th!
Libraries & Librarians
News Updates
I don’t want this to get lost in the midst of the other censorship news, so it’s going here: The Oklahoma City Library released guidelines on patrons seeking abortion information – specifically, staff are advised not to discuss abortion with patrons or assist with any abortion-related searches.
The Vinton Public Library has reopened after the mass resignation of most of its staff.
Bellingham Public Library (WA) reported a data breach that affected a small number of patron accounts.
Nashville Public Library director Kent Oliver announces his retirement.
The man behind the first Black library in America receives a grave headstone more than 80 years after his death.
Cool Library Updates
Highwood (IL) Public Library offers mental health resources for immigrants impacted by the recent shooting in Highland Park on the 4th of July.
How suburban Illinois libraries are serving Latino patrons.
This Ohio resident has set up a small lending library to serve the members of the nearby Amish community, which is located over 8 miles away from the nearest public library.
Worth Reading
Library work has a trauma problem. Can it be fixed?
Calling a thing a thing: how race, gender, and class hierarchies conflate literacy and privilege.
Using the power of stories to convey the importance of libraries.
Book Adaptations in the News
Three of E. Lockhart’s books have been picked up for TV: We Were Liars, Family of Liars, and Again Again.
Paramount+ is adapting Becca Fitzpatrick’s YA series, Hush Hush.
Netflix is adapting the manga thriller series, Burn the House Down.
Casting update for Tiny Beautiful Things.
Enola Holmes has a confirmed second season.
Wheel of Time has been renewed for Season 3.
All of the Harlan Coben book adaptations currently on Netflix, and the ones on the way.
House of the Dragon is set to premiere on August 21st.
The first full trailer for the remake of Interview With the Vampire has been released.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Banned & Challenged Books
This is important: the book ban movement has a chilling new tactic: harassing teachers on social media.
Also important: Moms For Liberty are planning their next move: taking over school boards. Not surprisingly, DeSantis is assisting their efforts.
What would help you fight book bans?
How is publishing combatting censorship?
Denton ISD (TX) students petition the district to keep diverse book titles.
Related to ongoing CRT challenges: a Texas school board member from Grapevine-Colleyville ISD said that the high school’s first Black principal was fired for his racial activism and claims that he was teaching CRT.
10 of the most absurd titles on Texas State Rep. Matt Krause’s banned books list.
Lafayette (LA) librarian Cara Chance has been threatened with firing for opposing censorship.
Parents packed the most recent Livingston Parish Library (LA) Board meeting with concerns over potential book bans.
Despite “taking a pause” on classroom libraries, Brevard Public Schools (FL) assures that some books will be available. (This is…not much of an assurance.)
The Miami-Dade School Board voted to disallow two sex-ed textbooks, which discussed abortion and contraception. (THIS IS PART OF SEXUAL EDUCATION. YOU CAN’T HAVE SEXUAL EDUCATION AND NOT TALK ABOUT ABORTION OR CONTRACEPTION.)
What the Florida CRT controversy means for the future of textbooks.
Pride rally at Forest Public Library (VA) supports the freedom to choose what to read.
Why is Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt targeting issues at Tulsa Public Schools?
This is a misleading headline, but one school board member in Delmar, NY spoke out in support of a donation of LGBTQ books by saying “The more banned books, the better!”
Martha Hickson, a school librarian in Annandale, New Jersey, has received the 2022 Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced With Adversity for her fight to keep LGBTQ books in the high school library.
What killed equity in the Pine-Richland School District (PA)?
The Fairvew, PA superintendent removed Gender Queer from the Fairview High School library.
Politics, not professionals, will determine book selection in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And yes, Central Bucks, your library proposal IS a book ban.
File this one under really dangerous ideas: Bedford (VA) school libraries will offer alerts to parents on what their children check out. Not surprisingly, the library staff are concerned.
A weird state law lets Virginians sue books. Politicians are using it to dictate what people can read.
Loyalty Books in Washington DC had a recent Drag Queen Story Time that was interrupted by protestors.
Boone County (KY) Board of Education heard public comments regarding LGBTQ-related books available in schools, although this topic wasn’t listed on the official agenda.
Wisconsin residents rally around the book When the Emperor Was Divine, which the Muskego High School Board voted to remove from the high school curriculum. In response, the AAPI Coalition of Wisconsin held a “teach-in” about the book and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II before an upcoming board meeting.
Bomb threats, canceled events, empty schools: how a bullying probe paralyzed a Wisconsin town’s democracy. The bullying probe was a Title IX investigation for the alleged bullying of a transgender student.
Iowa town gets its wish: no more LGBTQ books, because no more library.
Salem (OR) high schools elect to keep Gender Queer in school libraries.
A Los Angeles neighborhood council debated sending a letter to the LAPL, asking them to restrict children’s access to the graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, citing nudity and graphic language.
The Solana Beach School District (CA) received a donation of LGBTQ books for kids, but then parents objected.
New York Book Review editor Pamela Paul wrote an extremely misguided op-ed on book censorship from the left, but LitHub‘s editor-in-chief Jonny Diamond wrote about the false equivalencies drawn in the original article.
What rights do students have to access books?
Book bans? My school doesn’t even have a library.
The changing nature of library censorship.
Nearly a dozen of the guests who have appeared on Fox News as concerned parents against CRT are actually GOP activists and consultants.
Backlash, hostility, and safety fears: what it’s like to be a chief equity officer in an anti-CRT era.
All the little things you lose in the culture war.
Drag queens are “not gonna back down” after attacks on Drag Queen story time events.
How comics are grappling with censorship and book bans.
Books & Authors in the News
Gone Girl-themed…cruise? Sure, why not?
Numbers & Trends
Bookstagram is fueling an unnerving trend, with reviewers tagging authors in negative criticisms of their books.
The most popular in-demand books for US libraries: April – June, 2022.
Award News
The Booker Prize longlist has been announced.
The 2022 World Fantasy Awards finalists have been announced.
Mick Herron has won the Theakston Old Peculier crime novel of the year award for Slough House.
Waterstones announces the launch of its Debut Fiction Prize.
Pop Cultured
Disney is developing a new musical comedy, Penelope, which is billed as a unique twist on the story of “The Princess and the Pea.”
H.E.R. will be starring as Belle in ABC’s hybrid live-action/animation special adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.
Bookish Curiosities & Miscellaneous
A luxury resort in the Maldives is looking for a “barefoot bookseller.”
On the Riot
What it’s like being an autistic school librarian.
YA summer romance adaptations to stream right now.
8 literary adaptations you can stream right now.
The best places to discuss books online in 2022.
Why this reader is obsessed with the BabyLit series.
8 clever ways to tackle your TBR.
Well, Dini has nabbed the cat photo honors for the last few newsletters, so here’s a photo of Gilbert. He’s perched on my leg and looking very satisfied with his perch.
That’s all folks. I’m going to rest my brain this weekend (ha, jk, I have #SaturdayLibrarian duties this week), but I’ll catch you all again on Tuesday.
—Katie McLain Horner, @kt_librarylady on Twitter.
